Changeling
by GoWithTheFlo20
Summary: The wizarding world called her a Metamorphmagus, only because they had no other label to slap on her forehead. The truth was, Metamorphmagus was the closest thing to what Harry was that anybody could find, and even then, the tag was ill fitting. It was like calling a tiger a cat. Close, but not quite adequate. Changeling!Harry Fem!Harry
1. Chapter 1

**QUICK NOTE:** I am heavily, and I can't stress that word enough, messing with Harry Potter Canon. If you have never watched DS9, you likely do not know what a Changeling is, but well, it's an alien. If that doesn't hint at the scale I'm fiddling with Harry Potter Canon, I don't know what would lol. Either way, for those fans who dearly love Canon, I just wanted to give you a quick heads-up before I start this fic so you can turn back now. If you don't mind this, but are rather put off by the DS9 aspect, don't fear, most of DS9 will be explained through the eyes and P.O.V of Harry. That being said, for the ones sticking to this absolute insanity I've cooked up in my head, I really do hope you enjoy this! Future chapters will be longer, as this is just a prologue and meant to wet the appetite so to speak, and to see if there is any actual interest for… Whatever absurdity this is lol.

 **TAGS:** Fem!Harry. Alien!Harry. Changeling!Harry. Parental Odo. Cultural exploration of the Vorta and the Founders. (More to be added later.)

 **PAIRINGS: **Keevan/Fem!Harry/Weyoun. Kira/Odo. Garak/Julian.

* * *

 **Harry's P.O.V**

Harry Potter had always been a little bit… different. Most of the time, it was in ways most civilised people could handle or explain away. So what if she preferred her home, her belongings, in order? Alphabetized, colour-coded, sized and grouped by shaped, everything and anything in her world had a place and direction. Aunt Petunia and uncle Vernon had surely profited, from the arduous years she had spent under their abuse and neglect, from her innate need to clean and give order to things. So what if she loved textures, even if that ended up as fashion disasters such as her yule ball where she mixed fur with corduroy? So what if she didn't sleep, not in the way most sentient beings did? Sleep, arguably, deprived so many of much needed time to get things done, to think and explore. Sleep, from what her friends had described it as, sounded torturously boring. So what if she neither ate or drank? In the end, it was she who was saving grocery money. Still, the fact remained she had always been a little odd, right from her birth, or rather, her discovery.

Harry supposed that was another 'odd' thing about her. She hadn't been born. Well, rather, like most she couldn't remember being born, but she was pretty sure, if she had, it wasn't in the same lane of most mammals, being pushed out of their mothers' stomach, wet and squawking… And solid. According to Remus, Lily and James Potter had found her in Godric's wood, a week after they moved into their modest village house, just a handful of what seemed to be bioluminescent green gunk glopping off an oak tree leaf. Not quite knowing what she was, or that she was sentient at all, and ever curious, James Potter had scooped her up into a little flask and took her home with him. When, a day later, James had opened the flask to see her pop out, against gravity, and slip and sloop away into the corner of the front room was, perhaps, the time he and Lily realised she wasn't some pretty, glow in the dark tree sap valuable for potions making. Thank Merlin.

In those days, she had been barely big enough to fit a dainty tea-cup, just a tickle of slime was she. Still, she grew, as most things did, even sentient liquid it seemed. James and Lily had coaxed her, talked to her, been incredibly kind and within a month, she was morphing. Just a little spike here, a ball there, a spiral, a finger, a limb, a body, then a face. By six months, she looked as any other baby looked, rosy cheeked, gummy, black of hair like James, green of eye like Lily and soon, not only was she solid, though she could not hold the form longer for thirty minutes in those old days, she was _their_ child. They took her in, adopted her. They sang to her. They laughed and cried and… They were, for the sorrowfully short time Harry had the pleasure of their company, the best parents any goop that could shape-shift could ask for.

They named her Harry. Short for Harriet, for a girl, or plain Harry for a boy. In those early days, she couldn't morph properly and well, gender wasn't really a paramount factor to a liquid, especially when that liquid couldn't keep shape longer than the time it took for a kettle to boil or could speak, so James and Lily had given her both options. Most often now, Harry presented as a woman, in honour of dear Lily who sacrificed her life to save her, whose love for her had been so strong, it had protected her for fourteen, nearly fifteen years, and took the name Harry, in honour of James.

They, the wizarding world, called her a Metamorphmagus, only because they had no other label or name to slap on her forehead. Tonks, the only other adult Metamorphmagus Harry knew, ate and drank, Tonks slept too, and perhaps most importantly, she didn't need to revert back to any gelatinous mass when the clock struck the fourteenth hour, the longest Harry could hold any shape or form so far. Or, as Ron lovingly called it, when Harry had to 'goop out'. The truth was, Metamorphmagus was the closest thing to Harry, or to what she was, anybody could find, and even then, the tag was loose and ill fitting. It was like calling a tiger a cat. Close, but not quite adequate.

Her abilities had come a long way since her rippling puddle of gunk days, being carted around in a flask, but still needed work. Humans, to her, were the easiest and now, at sixteen, standing next to any other from her year, no one would be able to tell Harry apart from the crowd. She reasoned her quick adaptability to mimicking the human visage, right down to pores and hair follicles, was because of the beatings Petunia and Vernon put her through when she showed any outward sign of being anything but solid and human. Her second best was winged animals. She adored taking a flight, be it in raven, owl or griffin form. The feeling of air ruffling her feathers, the crisp smell of the wind, the colours of the sky…

She was less skilled at taking on the legged beast shapes. Oh, she could do it, if she thought long and hard before attempting it. Even then, she was sometimes liable for little faults. An extra hoof, no snout, wonky ears. And objects? Now that was a disaster. She had always been too… Energetic to copy a lamp or bowl, and the few times she had tried, well, it was something straight out of a H. P. Lovecraft novel. Tentacles and all. Yes, her abilities irrevocably drove her away from the crowd, an outsider with just a step in the door, but she was sure, without them, she would be dead… Permanently dead, that is.

For such a relatively short life, all of sixteen years, she had put her gifts, and herself, to the test. They kept her safe from 'Harry hunting'. When locked in her cupboard, before Vernon caught her little game and sealed the cracks with caulk, she had been able to slip in and out as she pleased and well, it was harder to punch, strangle or kick a puddle, wasn't it? In first year, she didn't think she would have been able to fight that troll without transforming herself into that boulder she then rolled at the damned thing, knocking it out. Never mind morphing a part of her hand to resemble the philosophers stone to trick professor Quirrel into thinking she had something to bargain with. She wouldn't have survived the Basilisk without morphing into a sightless phoenix to peck out its eyes before switching to an Acromantula to tear it apart, only reverting back to the form known as Harry long enough to stab Tom Riddles diary with the basilisk tooth she had mimicked her hand to be. In third year, she would have never gotten away, Hermione and Ron along with her, from a turned Remus without being a griffin, nor away from the dementors without shifting to one herself. She would have never left the Triwizard tournament without changing to a dragon, jelly-fish and owl…

The list was endless, but the conclusion wasn't. Without her abilities, she would have been as dead as Voldemort was now. Merlin, most thought, and Harry was inclined to agree, that it was her shape-shifting abilities, her real viscous form, that not only allowed her to bounce back from the killing curse twice, but allowed her, as a Horcrux, to continue on after the shard of Voldemort's soul had been vanquished. No other host, Nagini included, had survived being the vessel of such a foul and insidious substance such as Tom's essence. Once the rot was out, they were dust in the wind, not ironically, real dust, dematerialized and shattered, all apart from Harry and the only thing separating her from everything else was… Well, in her natural state, she was more fluid than most. Even so, being a Horcrux had scarred her, both physically and mentally. In all forms, including her fluid state, there was a scar of sort, a little fissure of a lightning bolt, like a tissue vein when she was gooey, black and vile. That part of her never glowed anymore, dead and cracked, but small and inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

Well, whatever it may be, her abilities, her strange origin, or sheer utter luck, Harry was alive and, despite the scar, for the first time in a long, long while, sitting around the Weasley's dinner table, hearing the laughter and jovial conversations and banter as they all tucked into the lovingly cooked Sunday lunch, Harry was happy… And then the feeling came.

A niggle, a tickle, a moment of stillness that Harry could only equate to the way Humans stopped right before a sneeze, readying, only for it to never come. But this, whatever this was, did come. A tug, right in her centre, a pull, gentle, cajoling and suddenly Harry was struck with the intrinsic need to… Go home. There were no other words for it. She simply, plainly, achingly wanted to go home. Then, for the first time in her life, she blinked and an image, so clear and crisp, so torturously familiar but bewilderingly alien, flashed on the back of her eyelids and Harry, for one weary moment, thought she might be dreaming. She could see it, a sky in sunset, a little island of sandstone standing proud and solitary, and there, right before her, stretching as far as the eye could see, flooding the horizon was a great orange sea of rippling vitality. Somehow, some Merlin forsaken way, Harry new this, this great sea of blazing orange, was _home._

She blinked and then she was back in the room, little Teddy Lupin tugging on her sleeve, babbling away. Stubbornly, Harry brushed away the image of the great orange sea still hazing her mind, viciously stomped down on that strange tugging feeling emanating from her middle and crossed her eyes, morphed her face into that of a chimpanzee and blew a rather messy raspberry at Teddy who, in turn, broke out into a peel of high-pitched laughter. She even heard Andromeda, who was sitting on the other side of Teddy, snort in her own muted chuckle. Harry joined in with the conversations. She laughed with the others. She joked and smiled and quipped and soon, Harry forgot about the whole thing.

If only it had stayed that way.

* * *

 **If you wish to see more, please drop a review, they get the fingers typing ;)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Benjamin Sisko's P.O.V**

Benjamin Sisko, Commander of the orbital station known as, in Federation standard, Deep Space Nine, silently and diligently took in a calming breath through his flared nostrils, exhaling slowly through his mouth. He had just enough time to square his shoulders back, compose his fatigued posture and paint on a blank face as the elevator came to a slick stop on the Command deck. The pleasant sound of early morning chatter between colleagues greeted him, the hum of the computer system stagnating in the air as he resolutely stepped out of the boxed elevator and into the busy culmination of his subordinates.

"Status report?"

Sisko asked as he made a trail around the spacious spherical room, peering over shoulders to check the computer outputs. His head of security, Lieutenant Worf, a towering Klingon of 6 ft 9 of intimidating grit, assiduously pulled away from his own work station to face the stern looking Sisko.

"A Jem'Hadar battleship is approaching the station."

From just behind Worf, Jadzia Dax, Sisko's oldest and truest friend, peeped out. Her solemn face, for once devoid of a blazing smile or merry twinkle in her blue eyes, clenched Sisko's teeth. The situation was severe then. Just what Sisko needed so early in his shift, sans his normal black coffee to kick-start his day. Her own report given through a clipped, clinical tone did nothing to ease his irritation or caution.

"Its weapons are armed and its targeting systems are active."

Sisko nodded, as if he expected for it to be nothing less, as he spoke out to the officers around him.

"Red alert! All crew members report to battle stations."

The result was instantaneous. The idle chatter died like an ant under boot, smiles dropped like china falling against concrete, and before Sisko could mentally commend them for such a swift shift into competency, everyone was already moving into place behind their designated stations. Still carving his own path to his station, elevated slightly from the rest at the very back of the room, right out front of his office, Sisko's Chief of engineering, O'Brian, crossed his path on his way to his own delegated spot in the room.

"They're hailing us."

O'Brian, words lilting with his soft Irish accent, told Sisko as he haggled past a group of scientists and came to a stop near the engineering sector of the Command deck. Slinking up the steps to his post, Sisko calmly braced his hands on the bronze railing, stiffened his spine and tilted his chin up. Proud. Determined. In control. Well, he may as well get this show on the road.

"On screen."

The large oval screen from the very front of the room lit up and really, truly, honestly, Sisko was not even a fraction surprised at the face that greeted him on the other end. Gul Dukat. One of the densest, extensive, and most persistent of thorns in Sisko's side. This meeting, of course, felt tarter than most, for it was the first time he had seen the Cardassian since his recent descent into the role of lapdog for the Dominion, and subsequently, since the damned man had sold out Sisko's own people for the privilege to play poster boy.

"Captain Sisko."

Yes, all this was too early for Sisko, especially with no caffeine slugging its way through his veins. In his role as Commander of this station, as Emissary of the Prophets to the Bajorans, as a Federation administrator who knew, deeply understood, the delicate diplomatic politics at play in the Alpha quadrant, which was on the precipice of an intergalactic war, Sisko knew he needed to be seen as tranquil, in control, perhaps even approachable to most, including Dukat, but dammit, a man was only so strong and even the pious Kai Winn couldn't fault Sisko for his utter lack of patience or affability to the reptilian bastard in front of him currently.

"Gul Dukat, what is the meaning of this?"

Gul Dukat had the gumption to smile at Sisko, harshly dappled purple from the Dominion ships lighting. It was a twisted thing indeed. It pulled tightly on his eye ridges, shadowing his keen eyes darkly, carving his mouth into a thin line, elongating his nose scales until his face looked reedy and piercing, like a viper readying to spit venom.

"You said you would take my request for Ghemor's extradition under advisement."

Subconsciously, a tick he had since he was a boy, Sisko rolled his jaw, the only outward sign that his temper was flaring. Before Sisko could refute that anything Dukat had done in the last week could remotely be labelled as a request, and that both knew exactly what this 'extradition' would cost Ghemor, who was currently laying down in a room in this very station with Kira, dying, O'Brian spoke up from bellow Sisko, looking up from his computer and over to his Commander.

"They've locked weapons on the station."

Dukat's vicious smile turned smarmy, slick and oiled. When he spoke, he sounded like he had already won their nonverbal battle of wills.

"I eagerly await your decision."

Sisko valiantly held back the answering snarl he wanted to give Dukat, tautly nodded to O'Brian and gratifyingly watched as the view-screen cut to black after his chief disconnected the transmission. Perhaps Dukat had won this little squirmish of barbed replies. In truth, there was nothing Sisko could do to stop Dukat. Tekeny Ghemor was a Cardassian citizen, exiled, but still one. His life fell under Cardassian jurisdiction. However, neither was Sisko naive enough to believe whatever lies Dukat was about to feed him on why exactly they wanted Ghemor back. Ghemor had been Legate, a high official in Cardassia, and the information he had been privy to were national secrets. Dukat was afraid that, through Ghemor's odd but heart-warming connection to Kira Nery's, those very same national secrets would become Federation exploits.

Nonetheless, Ghemor was dying. He was an old man, ill, and had come to Deep Space Nine to spend his last weeks with the only person he could count as family. Kira. Of course, the Federation were anxious to let the Cardassian stay, once the man had given his word to do as Dukat feared and pass along information for the privilege of dying on their territory, that note left a sour taste in Sisko's mouth, but all Sisko could do was buy Ghemor and Kira time. If that meant playing verbal volleyball with Dukat, then Sisko was priming his racket. What Ghemor told them in the upcoming weeks could very well lead to a turn in the unofficial war between the Federation and the Dominion. Sisko's discomfort and niggling conscious was a small price to be paid, for sure. Begrudgingly, Sisko turned to face Worf down at his side.

"Prepare for their arrival. Escort them to my office."

And then he was turning his back after a swift affirmative nod from Worf, about to head into his office to await his esteemed guests' arrival, when an Ensign dressed in blues skittered up to the bottom of his Command station stairs.

"I'm sorry Sir, but it's the Celestial Temple-… I mean the wormhole…"

She was fiddling with a Padd in her hands, fingers tapping rapidly on the metal back, her cheeks flushed and rosy, and her eyes were darting everywhere but to Sisko's face. Sisko tried to calm her.

"What's wrong with it, Ensign Bolverik?"

At her name being spoken, and the implicit knowledge being passed that the Commander of the station knew who she was by name, seemingly did the trick to bolster her confidence as she slid back into her professionalism like it was a suit of Romulan armour.

"From six hundred hours It's been emitting strange radiation. The levels of this radiation are steadily rising."

Sisko cocked a brow.

"Is the radiation dangerous?"

The young woman frowned as she quickly glanced down at her feet, before sheepishly meeting Sisko's eyes once more.

"I don't believe so. However-"

"Then keep an eye on it Ensign. Inform me if there are any changes."

Sisko turned back around and walked into his office, the doors emphatically sliding shut behind him. The truth was, with Ghemor on station, Dukat banging on his front door and the Dominion lurking somewhere in the shadows, Sisko had enough on his plate. The Bajoran wormhole, and the temporal aliens inhabiting it, were still a mystery to most, if not all. Every other day there were some strange readings coming from the wormhole. An odd flare of particles, radiation or minerals that the Federation had never seen before. This was no different. If he was going to play ball with Dukat, he needed his head in the game, not off in the stars.

Yet, as the Ensign pulled herself away from staring at the doors that had cut off the Captain's silhouette, as she huffed and crammed the Padd under her arm as she marched back to her station, throwing it down onto the table and idly watching as it skidded behind a screen, lost from view, wistfully waving goodbye at the imagined promotion she had pictured being given for bringing this to the Captain's attention, Bolverik missed the live readings of her graph as the red line she had stumbled across abruptly spiked to unprecedented levels…

* * *

 **Hermione Granger's P.O.V**

Hermione found Harry in the back garden of Grimmauld place, sitting cross legged in the dewy grass, staring up at the twinkling stars. For a moment, Hermione simply stood at the doorway, one foot out and one foot in, looking at her dearest friend. Harry had always had difficulty connecting on even the most basic of levels, and in turn, it was sometimes hard to understand exactly where her head was at. Hermione understood, logically, it was because of _what_ Harry was. She was different, unique, one of a kind and so utterly alone in this cold world.

Things, human emotion, actions and reactions, didn't come naturally to Harry. Harry tried, by Merlin she tried, but there was always a disengagement there. A blockade in the communication tango. Take, for example, laughter. Hermione poignantly remembered the first time Harry had laughed in her and Ron's presence. It was such a horrid sound, and even remembering it now, goosebumps prickled up the skin of her arms. Robotic, forced, pitched just at the wrong tone. It had jarred Hermione and Ron to silence. When questioned by a befuddled Harry about what was wrong, Hermione could only ask her what that bloody noise was.

Nonetheless, when Harry explained, when Hermione got to know Harry for truly what and who she was, Hermione came to the tragic conclusion of Harry's separation. Laughter was a human response. It showed joy and merriment and felt like sunshine… But Harry wasn't human. She never was and, more tragically, she never would be, no matter how much she watched or studied them. She was something else, something fluid. Liquid, even when happy, didn't laugh. In trying to fit in, to blend with the equally alien crowd around her, Harry had tried ardently to mimic and copy those around her, and somehow, it had made it all the more worse. Instead of it being outrightly wrong, there was just something… Off. It set the hair on the back of your neck up on end, it made your heart thump and pound, it made your mouth go dry as if you were staring at a shadow that was wearing a human face.

That was why their friendship worked. Unlike everyone else, Ron and Hermione didn't expect Harry to be human, to play the part, and in turn, Harry met them in the middle ground. Hermione discovered when happy, instead of laughing or smiling, Harry got a little jiggle about her, especially in her natural state. Yet, to outwardly show them she was agreeable, she smiled and slowly, learnt to copy laughter to a degree that didn't scare the living shit out of them. When she was upset, Harry didn't cry, she was goo after all, but Hermione could tell her shape, whatever it may be, bird, ball or Harry, it became somehow… Tight. Drawn. Angular. When they were upset and began to cry, when Harry didn't originally know why they were, in her words 'leaking', and grew worried she had 'popped' Hermione, they sat down and explained what it was and why humans did it.

No. Human interaction didn't come naturally to Harry. But Harry had persevered, tried again and again and again, talked and most importantly, listened and really, Hermione thought that made her _more_ human than any of them. Harry never gave up, no matter how confusing the situation seemed, the emotions around her became, or how angry others got with her frequently viewed rude behaviour. Harry pushed on. Harry was always there, always ready to learn, always the net you know would be there to catch you when you fell.

However, now, once again, after all these years, there was something off once more. Over the last six months, Harry had progressively drawn in on herself, like a turtle receding into its shell. It started off harmlessly. A missed lunch date. A stare that often drifted out to space, unfocused and if Hermione didn't know Harry as well as she did, if she knew Harry didn't sleep as humans did, simply gooped out and relaxed for a few hours before she reformed her shape, Hermione would swear, in those moments, Harry was dreaming. Then she stopped coming to the Weasley's weekend dinners, she ignored owls, she doused flu calls until, eventually, it had been a full two months before Hermione had either heard or saw her normally sociable friend. When Andromeda had come to her this morning, pallid and nervous, with a letter from the Ministry of Magic telling Hermione that Harry had transferred everything, all her wealth, Grimmauld place, Godric's Hollow and most of her belongings to Teddy, Hermione, rightfully, grew intensely worried.

So, here Hermione was, left caught in the in between, wandering just how long Harry had been out here in the dead of night. By the sheen on her arms, the coating of dew making her pale skin sparkle, perhaps for days, liquidizing and morphing when the need suited her. Idly, Hermione wondered if Harry had taken human form only when she had heard Hermione coming, for Hermione's comfort. As if sensing Hermione's presence, maybe she did, maybe she had been expecting Hermione all along, Harry finally pulled her wide-eyed gaze from the stars, glancing over her shoulder to Hermione. There was a smile on her perfectly morphed human face, but it was small and sad and the sight of it pulled on Hermione's intestines.

"I think I have to leave now."

Harry spoke plainly, as she often did, but there was something incredibly serene about her voice then. Absolutely accepting. Almost too strongly, Hermione laughed, and kicked away the feeling of dread that was slowly tightening around her neck like a hangman's noose. Finally, her body shifted into gear and Hermione stepped away from the back door, strolling towards Harry.

"Okay, well, it's short notice but let me and Ron pack our bags and we'll-"

Harry cut her off in that same tranquil fucking voice.

"I have to go alone."

Hermione frowned as she came to a stumbling stop a few feet away from a still sitting Harry. Her heart jack-hammered in her chest as she scrambled for a logical meaning behind Harry's cryptic message. Where was she going that they could not follow?

"What do you mean, Harry? I know over the last few months you've been… Well, the saying 'itchy feet' doesn't quite cover it, does it? But whatever this is, whatever you're going through, thinking of… This, we'll get through it together like we've always done. You, me and Ron. The Golden Trio, remember?"

Perhaps it was the way Harry was talking about leaving so calmly, so peacefully, perhaps it was her unblinking stare, perhaps it was simply the reaction to being in the presence of something not quite human, but whatever it was, something unsettled Hermione right down to her bone marrow. Finally, Harry brushed her hands off on her jeans, or really, herself that she had morphed to look like a pair of jeans, and came to a stand, but even as she turned to face Hermione, her gaze trailed back up to the stars, drawn and pinned.

"You and Ron have homes here, family here, I have… I have nothing."

No. Hermione didn't like the way Harry was talking. Not one bit. It sounded too final, too resolute, like a full stop to a poem that you wished carried on forever. She stormed up to her friend, braced her hands on Harry's shoulders and forcibly drew Harry's gaze back to her.

"You have us. We love you. Harry… Please, just talk to me?"

Harry, right then and there, looked so very, very lost. Not even that time, when Harry had given her goodbyes to Ron and Hermione, had walked to her death with her head held high, sure she would never see a sunrise again, Harry had never seemed so misplaced.

"It's a feeling. It's been here for a while now. Perhaps it's been here all along and I've just never had the time to process it. It's this feeling, right in my centre. When I first noticed it, it was just a twinge. An echo. Everything, everyone, even the stars just seem… Off. No, not off, just not right. These aren't my stars. This isn't my land. These aren't my people. Day by day, it's grown bigger, fatter, into a beast I can't silence anymore. It's all I can think of, breathe, dream. I-… I think I've been dreaming, Hermione. I see images, right when I close my eyes or when I relax and keep still like a lake, moving pictures of me stepping onto strange land, with big bright flowers that glow like me, and right before me is a great orange sea and I… I feel like I've come home. Hermione…"

Harry's expression, along with her innocent voice lost adrift in a series of confused ramblings, broke Hermione's heart.

"I want to go home."

Hermione had never really thought about how Harry felt being around humans, often caught up in people's reactions, Hermione's included, to her and what Harry could do. Hermione had never thought to put herself in Harry's shoes. Maybe all this, them, Humans, they were just as alien and confusing to Harry as she was to them. Perhaps they unsettled her as much as she disturbed them. Possibly, in the end, the gulf separating them, solid, from Harry, liquid, was just too great to construct a bridge over. Yet, despite all this, maybe because of it, Harry was and always would be Hermione's best friend. She couldn't picture Harry being any other way than what she was. Even with her… Oddities, she was compassionate beyond measure, braver than many men and women, and when she loved, Harry loved with every drop of her being. When you came across something like Harry, you didn't just let them walk away.

"And we can't go with you?"

Hermione's voice cracked harshly as her throat constricted. She was being selfish, Hermione knew, but she was not as selfish as to ask Harry not to try and find where she began, to explore these 'dreams', her birthplace, where she came from or to see if there were anymore like her out in this huge world. There was still so much they, Hermione too, didn't understand about Harry, about exactly what she was. After all, Hermione severely doubted Harry had come from an oak tree in Godric's Hollow. Now that the war was over, now that the wizarding world was gradually rebuilding, now that hard earned peace was finally settling over them, really, Harry had every right to go and find her own happiness.

Still, Hermione wasn't ready to watch Harry walk away. Since they were eleven, it had always been Harry, Ron, Hermione. She couldn't imagine a world where the three weren't together until they were old and grey. Every bruise, every scratch, every splatter on Harry's part, they had earned together. When one fell, the others picked them up. And… And yet they were all growing up, moving on, _living_ , weren't they? Ron was going to interviews for his Auror training next month, Hermione was beginning her apprenticeship under Flickwick this autumn, and what had either Ron or Hermione expected of Harry? To stay in this empty, baron home by herself? This time, it was Hermione feeling the pleasant weight of Harry's hands, as cold as the night around them, settling on her shoulders.

"I don't think I'm coming back. Not this time."

 _Let me go._ That was what Harry was asking, underneath all this, concealed in her sad smile and peaceful tone. Harry hadn't just packed up shop and left, even if it would have been easier for herself, because, in the end, Harry hadn't wanted to stain what they had. Harry wanted to give them all one last gift. The ability to look back upon their memories, of her, without the feeling of abandonment or sorrow clouding their mind.

Jarringly, Hermione remembered a trip she took to the aquarium with her parents when she was only seven years old. She remembered how, at the end of the tour, she had looked up to her father and asked him where the great white shark was, an animal a young Hermione had yearned to see up close. Right then, with Harry looking her dead in the eye, she heard her fathers answer once more. _They die in captivity, dear one. They're used to big, open ocean. Cutting them off from the sea makes them very, very sad. They refuse to eat, they isolate themselves and eventually, they pass on. That's not a very nice thing to do to another being, is it?_ Hermione remembered her vehement shake of her head and her stubborn exclaim of _of course not!_ That was the first time Hermione had become a passionate advocate for freedom, in all forms. It had stuck with her through her life, from fighting for house elf rights, to the war and battling for Muggleborn existence, everything, everyone, right down to the smallest creature, deserved freedom. Hermione had never seen a great white shark in the flesh, but she was happy with the knowledge that they were out there, living freely.

Harry was a great white shark. She had stayed, battled for them, raged war and done her part for the betterment of their people, but now she was still caged, she was isolating and starving herself, withering away from being disconnected, and soon, perhaps, she too would pass on, dreaming of going back to the vast sea she had been plucked from. Hermione licked her chapped lips and tasted salt. Blinking, she realised she was crying, but, looking at her friend, at those green, green eyes that held nothing but love, Hermione smiled through the pain.

"We made some cracking memories though, didn't we?"

It was time to smash the aquarium and let Harry swim home, no matter where those tides took her, or how far away she ended up. Perhaps she would never see Harry again, not in the flesh, but like those great white sharks, Hermione could rest easy knowing Harry, for once, was truly happy and free. Oddly, Hermione realised, with this sense of resignation, she had always known, on some deeply buried level of her mind, her time with Harry, this being that was so strange, outside of everything, including the wizarding world, was always limited. A clock ticking down to zero. Perhaps all the greatest things in life were fleeting, passing, making them all the more special. Harry's grip on her shoulders tightened a fraction, and hearing Hermione's unspoken connotation, the smile she gave Hermione was prodigious, earnest and beyond words.

"The very best of memories Hermione."

Then Harry pulled away and her grin turned impish, jiggling a little at the corners. _She was happy._

"And they're not quite over yet. How about you, me and Ron have one last hurrah?"

Harry slinked to her side, wrapped an arm around Hermione's shoulder and began walking back towards the house. Hermione chuckled.

"I'll flu him."

* * *

 **NEXT CHAPTER:** Sisko's day goes from bad to worse, goodbye's are given and Deep Space Nine takes a hit.

 _ **Thank you!**_ To everyone who has followed, favourited and reviewed this! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I'm on break from Uni for the next month (yay!), so chapters will be quite regular for a while, especially the first three as they were written together, but were too large to post as one so I've split them up. However, if you wish for there to be more time between updates, just pop me a message and I can just store the chapters up and post once a week.

Next chapter, we peep in on Sisko, Harry and Odo, so I hope you are looking forward to that.

As always, if you can, please drop a review. I love hearing your thoughts on this, even if it is to simply ask for more, it lets me know there's some people reading and enjoying this madness lol.


	3. Chapter 3

**Benjamin Sisko's P.O.V**

Sisko sat behind his desk, staring at his baseball safely housed in its stand next to his personal view-screen. In times of great emotional, mental and moral instability, Sisko often found himself staring at his prized item, rubbing his thumb along the skin and stitching, bouncing it from hand to hand. It reminded him of why he was here, why he was willing to do what he did, why, even when all he wanted to do was kneel in defeat, he still stood tall and faced uncertainty and war with a steady eye. It was for them. His son, Jake. His father back home in New Orleans. For the boys and girls growing up back on earth, dreaming of a bountiful and peaceful future.

It was of them Sisko thought about when the sound of his office doors swooped open, when two station security officers dressed in beige with phasers ready on their hips parted like the red sea, took guard at either side of the bulky entrance with well-practiced mastery, and, behind them, appeared his esteemed guest, the doors to his office whooshing shut behind them all.

"Captain Sisko, thank you for the kind invitation."

And it was for them, his family and all humans, that Sisko didn't immediately boot Gul Dukat straight out of the nearest airlock. Gul Dukat stood before him, dressed in his Cardassian military blacks, silver metal angles sharp and polished, preening like a peacock. The man, Sisko would give him his due, even if that due was begrudgingly given, painted a princely and intimidating figure. Like all Cardassians, the man's skin was grey in shade, but Dukat's skin always seemed… Keen. Like a polished knife glinting in the night. His ridges and scales gave him an angular profile, the sharpness only matched by the mind inside and his black hair, cut and slicked back like most Cardassian males, somehow constantly looked darker than conceivable.

Yes, when Dukat walked into the room, despite not being the tallest, broadest or most eye catching, he still managed to snatch ones attention almost immediately. However, this day, Sisko's gaze was drawn to the individual Dukat had brought along with him. Sensing Sisko's attention not on Dukat, the Cardassian, almost as if he himself had only just remembered he had not come alone, flickered his own gaze to the man standing besides him, waved a limp hand and gave a droll and rolling introduction.

"This is one of my Dominion advisors, Weyoun."

Sisko, beneath the blasé introduction, detected a hint of scorn lurking between Dukat's careless vowels. He filed that little scrap of information away to use at a later date. When playing with Dukat and the Dominion, every lie, omission and slip of tongue was useful. The man known as Weyoun was shorter than Dukat's impressive six-foot-one frame, was contradictorily smiling brightly against Dukat's insufferable indifference, and his clothes were made of simple patterned cotton of muted purples and soft browns. His skin was pale, nearly impossibly so, with a shadow of violet skulking in his extremities, his hairline and cheeks. His ears, which disappeared into his pinned hair that coiffed into inky black curls on top of his head, were ribbed and blushed too, giving him and young and innocent air. His heather coloured eyes, lively and vivacious, were wide and alert, wondrous almost, as he ostensibly soaked in all around him with a hunger that seemed equal parts curiosity and amazement. His smile appeared genuine enough, at home on his pleasant, open and warm face, but it was here that the sharpness of Weyoun's character made its one and only appearance. Nevertheless, Sisko knew intrinsically, behind this plain exterior, the warmth and congeniality, hid a man possibly supplementary treacherous, faster witted and more dangerous than Dukat.

"We've met."

Sisko said as Weyoun stepped forward and gave a polite bow of greeting. Slowly, Sisko stood from his chair, eying the figure of Weyoun with aversion and weariness.

"I saw you die."

Still exuberantly cheerful beyond what should be appropriate at such a meeting and time, with the company he was keeping, Weyoun's head cocked to the side at as he regarded Sisko's dry statement.

"That wasn't me. At least, not exactly."

Weyoun rebutted as his grin, if it could, grew greater and sprightlier. Sisko tried not to sigh deeply. He had not imagined this very same man, Weyoun, back on the Dominion ship that had abducted him and his crew in the Gamma quadrant, who talked his way into gaining Sisko's aid to help wrangle in errant Jem'Hadar who were planning to invade earth through a discovered portal, who too, eventually tried to double cross all of them only to be shot in the back by the very same Jem'Hadar, his own crew, he had tried to get Sisko to kill. No. It was definitely the same man. Sisko could never forget that smile. Tired of not being included into the conversation, Sisko was sure, Dukat chose then to throw in his own flippant coin of wisdom.

"The Vorta are experts at cloning."

Weyoun, like any good diplomat and field supervisor, effortlessly picked up the lazily dropped thread Dukat had thrown down.

"It tends to mitigate the risks involved with so much of our work. My predecessor was the fourth incarnation of our noble progenitor. I'm the fifth."

Weyoun placed a hand upon his chest, and once again, bowed as if he was introducing himself or this, the possibility and the untold and unspoken repercussions of cloning for the Federation, as an unremarkable act. This… This changed a lot. The Vorta, the race in which Weyoun belonged, were a part of the top tiers of the Dominion. From what Sisko had saw and understood himself, only the Founders were above them in the hierarchy of the Dominion, with the Jem'Hadar below acting as foot soldiers and infantry.

The Vorta, from the Federation's investigation of them, acted as the visual representation of the Founders, who often kept reclusive and detached from the Dominion's population. _The Founders spoke and the Vorta acted_ , was the popular saying. They policed, gave policies and law, ran court and jury, and all in short, kept the machine running for the Founders who preferred to stick to the shadows. In the onset of war between the Federation and the Dominion, only a matter of time since the induction of Cardassia into the Dominion domain in some perspectives, the Vorta had been marked as high-level targets. To know that even if they captured one, killed two, three, ten, twenty, they could simply pump out more and by the sounds of it, Weyoun seemed to remember Sisko just as much as Sisko remembered him, still have their precursors memories would be a blow to the Federation indeed.

"Immortality…"

At Sisko's deprecating declaration, Weyoun languidly waved a hand, as if brushing away a spiderweb in front of his face, chuckling.

"Of a sort."

And then the smile dropped as Weyoun leant in towards Sisko, something deep glinting in his opulent eyes, sly and cunning and it was there, Sisko realised, that clone or not, there was still a little bit of the old Weyoun in him. The astute charmer.

"Interested?"

Weyoun offered with honeyed words. Yes, Sisko would admit, there was an interest there, a fascination and inquisitiveness inside himself, but he would never, not for anything, give in at the price of the Alpha Quadrants freedom. Turning away from Weyoun to face Dukat, coming to the end of his patience with all the political backtalk, hidden meanings and enshrouded agenda, Sisko spoke more briskly than, perhaps, intended.

"Dukat, you said you wanted to speak to me. Now here is your chance."

Dukat, thankfully, wasted no time, and seeing the offer lost, Weyoun was back to smiling cheerfully as he pulled back.

"Then I'll make it simple, Captain. Tekeny Ghemor is not a well man. He would be better off under the care of his own people. We want him to know he can come home."

Sisko scoffed harshly.

"To attend his own execution?"

The snipe, in this instance, was not unwarranted. Sisko knew how the Cardassian legal system worked. Guilty. There were no other verdicts. Furthermore, everyone in that room, bar the guards staring off into space but with their hands rested on their phasers, knew what this was really about. Cardassia trying to tie up it's loose ends and in so, leave the Federation with a smoking gun. At Sisko's accusation, Dukat at least had some decency to look partly ashamed and affronted, even if they all knew it was the truth.

"No, not at all. Ghemor's case has been reviewed by the new judicial system and he's been cleared of any wrong doing."

Weyoun decided to jump onto the band wagon of trying to sooth Sisko's ruffled feathers.

"The Dominion courts are renowned for their honesty and equanimity."

Dukat pushed on.

"So, as you can see, there is no reason why Ghemor can't return to Cardassia."

There were a hundred and one reasons why Ghemor couldn't. It wouldn't surprise Sisko if Ghemor's transport back to Cardassia had a 'unforeseen' accident on route. Still, perhaps Ghemor could assert those reasons for himself. If Ghemor, now that Sisko knew, in view of the courts of both Cardassia and the Dominion, he had been acquitted of all crimes, told them of his wish to stay, as an innocent man, neither the Dominion or Dukat could push the matter. Dukat's earlier attempt at bullying for an extradition of Ghemor had no grounding, nothing but a bluff to try and yank the carpet out from under Sisko's feat, and the snake had let that slip. Now it was Sisko's turn to smile as his chin jutted out daringly.

"I don't think he would agree with you."

Dukat's eyes got tight, sleek, as his jaw clenched. Good. As petty as it was, Sisko found satisfaction in Dukat's petulance, anger and woe. After all, Sisko shouldn't be the only one suffering through his meeting. Weyoun, however, stepped up to the challenge.

"Perhaps we should find out?"

Just as Weyoun and Dukat couldn't deny Sisko, especially on the grounds of Ghemor's wishes now that he was a free man, neither could Sisko repudiate them the chance to offer the man the option to go home. So was the roundabout of democratic policies. Weyoun knew politics, especially those of the diplomatic core, intimately, and maybe Sisko had found his match. Opening his mouth to submit to their demand masquerading as a polite request given with a friendly smile, the lights of Sisko's office abruptly altered, the beacons on the wall and the one on his immense desk flashing a vivid crimson as he simultaneously heard the systems computer declaring a code red.

Frowning, Sisko's attention immediately diverted from the two beings in front of him. Code red was only activated in two circumstances, especially when launched by the computer system and not initiated by Sisko himself. An attack being released on the station itself, or an invasion of forces about to board Deep Space Nine. Shouldering passed Dukat and Weyoun, the guards darting through the door before it fully opened, Sisko was greeted with the Command Centre in abuzz with frantic movement.

"Report!"

Sisko demanded, blinded by the happenings around him to notice Dukat and Weyoun trailing up behind him. Jadzia, hunched over a Comm display and furiously tapping away at the screen, shouted back to Sisko from over her shoulder.

"The wormhole has opened and a projectile of some sort has been shot out. It's on a direct collision course with the station. The station shielding, for some unknown reason, has dropped. We're only working on fifteen percent."

Growling, Sisko swivelled around to the two men pressing in tightly behind him, eyes ablaze with fury and indictment.

"Is this your doing?"

They, Dukat and Weyoun, were the only two variants. Just twenty minutes ago, Deep Space Nine's shields were working at full capacity, the wormhole, while discharging odd radiation, had never 'shot' out a projectile at them before, and really, Sisko was looking for any reason to bash their skulls in, even if the latter would clone itself. Yet, Dukat looked just as put out as Sisko felt, and knowing the type of man he was, Sisko could never see Dukat sacrificing his life even to wipe Sisko off the chess board, and Weyoun looked sincerely confounded by the flashing lights and report just given.

"Not at all Captain. This is as much as surprise to you as it is to us."

Weyoun placated, but it did nothing to ease Sisko. Suddenly, the computer system spoke up once more, mechanically announcing they were one minute and twenty-seven seconds to impact. Bracing himself against the railing lining the little platform outside his office, Sisko barked over to his chief.

"O'Brian, will the shield hold?"

O'Brian, ever the tactile engineer, was already in the mainframe of the engineering station, deftly pulling out dilithium crystals and reconfiguring them. When the last one glowed yellow, O'Brian ran a shaky hand through his curly hair.

"I don't know, Captain. Whatever it is, it's coming in hot and fast and the shielding is dropping by the second. We're now at eleven percent."

Jadzia cut in.

"My scans are giving me a single life-form reading."

Sisko snatched the opportunity.

"Track it and put it on screen!"

The Command Centre's view-screen blinked to life, opening up to what appeared to be a passive display of the twinkling stars with the Bajoran wormhole swirling away at the far left. Yet, the view began to zoom in on what once looked like empty space. Slowly, ever so sluggishly given their time limit, the picture of what looked merely as a cloud of dust and space ice began to fill the screen. Then, Sisko squinted as the zooming stopped, and through the dust, ice and disturbance, Sisko saw… No… That couldn't be right… Dukat came to Sisko's side, peering over the railing, voice as incredulous as Sisko felt, saying what all were seeing but unwilling to say.

"Is that a silhouette of a humanoid? In open space?"

It was. Clutched in the midst of debris and ice and grainy from over magnification, there was a shadow spinning, arms and legs splayed, like a Catherine wheel, an old human firework, spinning out of control, whipping and twirling and hurtling towards them. Before Sisko could fully argue against what he was seeing, the computer system blared out once more.

"Five seconds to impact."

There was no time to talk, no time to argue, no time to ponder whether there was a disconnection between his eye and brain, or if they had all been struck by mass hallucination, as Sisko shouted his last command.

"Brace for impact!"

Everyone scrambled for purchase and just as Weyoun fixed himself on the other side of Sisko, the station gave an almighty lurch. The computer siren deafened them, the flashing of the bright red lights flickered at sickening intervals and the sound of people, his crew, his subordinates, the lives Sisko were responsible for, gasped and cried as some fell, pounded against all of Sisko's senses. Nonetheless, when the ground beneath their feet finally settled, it was for them that Sisko, despite the roiling in his stomach that threatened vomit, slid effortlessly back into business.

"Damage?"

Worf and Jadzia were already ringing through the reports flooding in.

"Some minor injuries reported from the lower Habitat ring. Pylon three, deck seven has been breached. One life-form in area of impact. Sir… The shields are back to a hundred percent."

What the hell could drain Deep Space Nine's shielding, at just the right moment to allow a comet or asteroid to hit, and then, for reasons unknown, allow it to regenerate? Possibly trapping whatever just hit, inside the station? The wormhole… The temporal aliens, the Prophets, the beings who lived in the wormhole, it was the only explanation, but the reasons were, as they always were when the Prophets were involved, shrouded in mystery. Motive and cause behind, Sisko needed to get a grip on the situation. Straightening out and disengaging from the railing, Sisko tapped his Comm badge pinned to his chest.

"Constable Odo, take a security team down to Pylon three, deck seven and find whatever just ripped a hole into my station."

Odo's cool and gruff voice echoed out from Sisko's badge not a second later.

"Affirmative, Captain Sisko."

Jadzia was already Comm'ing through to Dr Bashir to alert him of the happenings, requesting he get his own medical team together for those being diverted to the med-bay, O'Brian was rallying his own crew to head out to the surrounding systems to check maintenance, Worf was delegating security to the Promenade and surrounding Pylons to ease public tension and anxiety, and Sisko was left with the lovely assignment to handle the two men currently watching his people interestedly.

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but your meeting with Tekeny Ghemor will have to wait."

Sisko knew he sounded anything but apologetic, but with the way his day was going, he couldn't care less. Dukat looked ready to argue, but Weyoun circumvented him, smoothly stepping in front of the agitated Cardassian, hands clasped together.

"Of course it will have to wait, Captain! I freely offer both mine, our men, and Gul Dukat's assistance."

Sisko turned to head down the stairs, making his way towards the elevator.

"I'll have to decline your gracious offer."

Weyoun, however, proved to be a nimble little thing as he headed Sisko off at the bottom of his deck's stairs.

"And I'll have to insist. You see, Captain, this could have been as easily an attempt on Dukat's life, mine and the Dominion, then yours, this station and the Federation. You wouldn't want our report to reflect any discourse or unsolicited attempts on the Federation's part upon a Dominion citizen, especially when we are on a peaceful diplomatic mission, would you? That could be viewed, by some, as an act of war, could it not? No, I think it is best for _all of us_ , if we sort this situation together, to cast away any paranoia or doubt for each other. Yes?"

Sisko's jaw rolled as he frowned deeply. When he spoke, his words were pushed through clenched teeth.

"Of course not. You're more than welcome to come along."

Weyoun clapped and beamed a grin.

"Marvellous!"

* * *

 **Harry Potter's P.O.V**

The Veil was always a sight to see. A bowing, intricately carven archway of stone and wood, with runes long lost to conscious understanding littering it's body, eclipsed the slight flutter and shimmer of the transparent barrier. Harry knew as soon as she got close enough, the wind would shift, chilly and soft, as it carried disembodied voices caught in the crux of hectic conversation, muted to indistinguishable white noise. To her side, she could feel Ron and Hermione eyeing the Veil with trepidation that Harry, this time, didn't feel.

Their 'last hurrah', which they had planned to be the party popper to their colourful lives, had fizzled to an unsatisfying plop. The grand scheme to infiltrate the Ministry of Magic one last time, to sneak and scheme their way to the Veil, had been interrupted when a minister had spotted Hermione and had, all to willingly, offered to take them straight to the Veil if they wished. The bastard had even quickly agreed to leave them alone with the priceless artifact when asked. If there was one thing Harry had come to hate about being a war heroine, it was getting what she wanted without fighting for it. It made everything boringly easy.

Everyone, from bookkeep to Minister, wanted the approval and sanction of the girl-who-lived, and in so, due to their political or monetary ambition, were willing to bend over backwards as soon as Harry winked. Well, now that she was here, in front of the Veil, they wouldn't be getting her Oprah sticker much longer.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Harry? We still don't fully understand what the Veil is or does, but we do know once you go through, you don't come back, and just because you've _dreamed_ about going through it doesn't mean you should."

Hermione spoke up from Harry's right. Harry never tore her gaze from the arch. Hermione, as smart and quick as her friend was, couldn't understand her dreams, or visions, or whatever they may be. She wouldn't understand the images Harry saw with increasing frequency, of Harry, here, stepping through the Veil to the great orange sea that felt like home. Merlin, Harry didn't fully understand them herself. Perhaps she was killing herself, if the Veil was as the Ministry believed and a gateway from this world to the next. Perhaps she had lost her mind and these 'dreams' were fragments of her own tortured psyche. Perhaps…

But she had to do it. That was the only thing Harry knew for sure. The feeling, that song echoing out from her centre was impossible to ignore anymore. She had tried, so very hard, in the beginning to brush it off, push it down and lock it away. To carry on living as Harry, part-time solid and friend to most, stagnant and trapped. However, the demand had only gotten stronger. Day by day, hour by hour, the noise, the feeling, it became too much. Harry saw herself, so many times, right here, stepping through the Veil, sinking into the great orange sea on the other side and she was finally _home_. Something on the other side of the Veil was calling her and Harry, well, she _had_ to answer. It was instinctual, ingrained, a Merlin damned biological compulsion. Still, Harry could hardly understand the emotion herself, let alone verbalize it well enough to offer comprehension to people who, painfully, were fundamentally different from herself. So, Harry grinned over to Hermione and fell back on what she knew settled Solid's like nothing else. Humour.

"When have I ever done something I _should_ have?"

Hermione deflated right in front of her eyes and belatedly, Harry realised Hermione wasn't all too worried about Harry dying, about airing all and any doubts to ensure Harry was making the right decision, but was trying to delay the inevitable for just a few more moments. Goodbye's were always hard, they were sour and acidic and lingered for far too long, and yet, they were an unavoidable part of life. Right now or in a eight decades, they would say goodbye eventually.

Solid's, however, Harry had come to understand, perhaps due to their own stationary form, loathed change. Harry, due to her own morphing matrix, and a healthy dose of life lessons, had learned change was important, an integral part of life and to keep your head above the water, you had to roll with the tide sometimes. Change brought new adventures, new lessons, new experiences, both good and bad and was nothing to be feared. Nonetheless, even when telling herself this, it didn't make this particular goodbye any easier. Ron stepped out from her other side, slinging the backpack off his shoulder, gingerly holding it out for Harry to take. Harry went to take it, but Ron's grip never slackened on the strap.

"You could always build a home here, Harry."

Harry could. She could stay in Grimmauld place, watch Teddy grow, watch Ron and Hermione and everyone evolve and change in the way only Solids could, in tiny ways such as wrinkles, grey hair and extra fat, until one day they looked like they were different people, and she could live on. But, Harry knew now, it would never be home. She would never be truly happy. Oddly, in a solid world, Harry would be the one who wouldn't and couldn't change or grow. She would stagnate, crystalize and one day, Harry feared, she would come to hate everyone and everything in this magnificent world. Harry's hand tightened on the bag.

"I can't explain it, Ron. Words don't do it justice, but I have to go. We all know I was never really welcomed here."

And that was the painful truth, wasn't it? Through it all, the war, the battles, sacrificing her life, proving to any and all that she was like them, just like the Solids, she would never actually be one. No matter how much she gave, no matter how much she wanted to be, she _wasn't_ one of them. And that hurt like a bitch. Even now, people looked upon her with uncertainty. Disdain. Barely concealed disgust. Her best friends, the two individuals who knew her better than anyone or anything else, even this morning, couldn't stand watching her as she fully shifted from her natural state to the form they knew as Harry.

The fact that they made the distinction, the divide between fluid, object or animal, to the human they called Harry, and either didn't want to or couldn't take the idea that no matter her shape, she was and always would be Harry, showed how much they could never understand her. To them, in her fluid state, she was just goo. As an animal, she was just that animal, nothing more. She, to them, only existed in this form and that hurt more than anything else. Table, hawk or human skin, she was still her, still Harry, and yet, they only gave her the name Harry when she wore this face she had meticulously constructed to fit in.

It wasn't their fault. Not really. She was strange, odd, out of their realm of understanding and so, they boxed her into the only compartments they knew and even so, subconsciously knowing she fell out of their pretty labels, set solids on edge. Even her dear Ron and Hermione were not immune to this unbidden fear. She saw them. Oh, they tried to hide it, but she saw. The steps back when she shifted. The flicker of a gaze when they thought she wasn't paying attention. How they always, _always,_ kept their front to her. The small shiver they gave when she morphed.

And so, seeing this fear, Harry had limited herself, stopped morphing so much, relied on it last, blocked it out and she felt like she was slowly dying. The truth was Harry was tired of pretending to be a Solid, of pretending she was something she wasn't, cutting off parts of herself to make others feel better… She was tired of being alone. So achingly, torturously alone. If there was a chance there were others like her, in this great orange sea she kept seeing, she had to take it. Even if it hurt. So unlike him, and before Harry could move, Ron had her in a hug, gently talking into her ear.

"You may not be one of us, but you'll always be a part of us. My friend. My best mate. Never forget that… But if this is what you have to do, if this is what will make you happy, then go and know I'll never forget you or the times we shared."

Harry let go of the bag and looped her arms around Ron. Hugs. One of the better things the Solids had made. Softly, she spoke back just loud enough for Hermione to hear too.

"I could never, ever, forget either of you."

Hermione sidled up to the pair and joined in with the hug and the warmth was pleasantly bitter. Just like goodbyes.

"Thank you for making my life worth living."

And Harry meant it. She meant it with every drop of her being and if she had a heart, with that too. Without Hermione and Ron, this life would have been meaningless. Even with their slight fear of her, they had stayed by her side, taught her love and friendship and laughter and… So much. So fucking much. Harry didn't know how long they stood there, hugging, time meant little to Harry no matter how much Hermione nagged her about 'time management' and its importance, but eventually, like all things, it came to an end as they pulled away, and as Harry looked at Ron and Hermione's faces, as she saw their misty eyes and tears, for the first time, just to show them her own sorrow at this bitter goodbye, Harry wished she could cry. Instead, she smiled, and they seemed to get the sentiment just as clearly.

Ron handed over the bag and this time, he let go once Harry took it. Slinging it over her shoulder, Harry backed up, turned and walked up the dais to the Veil, closer and closer until the smoky wisps and tendrils of the Veil threatened to brush the tip of her nose. For the last time, Harry looked back at her friends and grinned as brightly as she could.

"Here's to the biggest adventure yet!"

Then she was back to facing the Veil, foot lifting to take the last step, Hermione and Ron's voice ringing out behind her with the final words they would ever say to each other.

"We love you!"

And then she took the step and she was hurtling through bright, hot, white light, voices screaming in her ears before the world around her exploded into a night sky full of twinkling stars and she was flying… Racing, careering… flailing, panicking… Oh, fuckin' shit...

* * *

 **Odo's P.O.V**

Odo meticulously studied the sectioned off deck of Pylon three, deck seven, over stepping upturned crates, his men fanned out, diligently picking through the mess surrounding them. Luckily for all involved, the Pylon had been delegated to storage, and the most damage incurred by the breach would be of the financial kind and not of life. Even then, the damage had been minimal, the breach now contained by the forcefield holding in oxygen for the Humanoids.

Glancing up to his left, at the top plating of the wall, Odo took in the entry point of the asteroid that had hit them. It was a small hole, metal exploding inwards, sharp and jagged, easily mended by O'Brian's men once Odo gave the order for his security team to ship out. A few wires from the ceiling, still alive, gave off little sparks of energy, fizzling into the darkened room. From the shock of the impact, a couple of support beams had been knocked free, crashing against the opposite wall, cutting the storage room into two triangles. There was a rather impressive crack running along the ceiling, but Odo believed it was more superficial than any thing else. Really, within two days, the area would be as good as new.

Ducking under a bent support beam, Odo came to the sight of impact, cleared of all thrown boxes, crates and storage containers. The area was dented, concaved, but not in a singular way, but rather in little pits spinning out from a larger dent, a bit scorched. Bending down on his haunches, Odo ran a finger over one smaller such hole. What an odd shape. Whatever had bulldozed its way in, whatever had landed, well… It had splattered. Yet, there was no sign of blood, ice or fluid. No… More importantly, the area of impact was completely empty.

No burned-up asteroid, no fractured comet, no fragment of a ship's warp core. It was as if, as laughable as the idea was, whatever had crashed into Deep Space Nine had somehow got up and walked away. That was insanity indeed. No Humanoid could survive in space. Of course, a Changeling could, Odo himself had been left adrift in space for many years before the Bajoran scientist, Mora Pol, had found him and took him back to the station. Even so, by the force of impact, Odo was unsure even a Changeling, as robust as they were, could survive such a blow. Then again, a hundred of them had been shot out into space, meant to crash onto a planet to learn more of the Humanoids, so, who was to say? No. That was his loneliness talking...

"Mrrrp."

Odo jolted, snatching his hand back from the mark on the floor, searching around him. His team of security officers were busy, overturning and righting this barrel and that box, some idly talking amongst themselves. Then, the noise came again.

"Mrrrrrrp."

It was louder this time, elongated… Panicked. It sounded like a cross between the purr of a kitten and a chirping bird. Had someone been smuggling in animals to the station? He wouldn't put it past Quark if the Ferengi thought it would earn him some extra Latinum. Odo stood, holding up his hand for his team to see.

"Silence!"

The men around him fell still and quiet instantly. Forever passed before, in a higher pitch, panic turning to distress, the noise came again, clearer now that he could hear effectively.

"Mrrrrp."

Following the sound, darting over boxes, peering past towering stacks, Odo came to a half-collapsed support beam. There were no cages, no stasis pods, nothing to show for an animal in cargo. Perhaps the computer system had been damaged more than previously thought and-… As Odo went to walk away, something brushed up against his boot accompanied by the noise.

"Mrrrrrp."

When Odo looked down, expecting a Risan love-bird or a Terellian cub, if he had been a Humanoid, he would have swallowed his tongue at what he did come to face. A green fluid, sparking with light that was dim and fading, was slinking to his feet, rippling, a half-formed tiny nub, melted and shrinking, nudging his foot before it folded back into puddle at the base of the support beam by his foot. The mass tried to re-form the crude limb, Odo could see the ripples congregate in an effort to morph, but it simply couldn't. It was such a tiny puddle, undulating, swelling and rippling, straining and Odo knew, despite its strange green colour of its natural state… It was a Changeling. It was one of him.

It was young, there was no doubt in that, its mass was tiny, underdeveloped, barely enough to fill a Raktajino mug Kira was so found of drinking, an infant in their races life-span of near immortality, delicate and small and, yes, a bit too watery, which was never a good sign… It was severely hurt, and then it clicked. This Changeling was the same thing that had come tumbling through Deep Space Nine, and by the dim glimmer of its dying shine, it was gravely injured by the crash. Odo leapt into action.

Glancing around him, Odo kicked over an upturned, spilled crate of glass beakers, snatched one up and bent down to the small puddle of the Changeling. Laying the beaker down, curved rim flush against the floor, right besides the struggling Changeling, Odo began to softly coax it.

"Go on. Don't worry, we won't hurt you. There you go, right in there. Rest. You're safe now."

Listlessly, the fluid slipped up to the side of the beaker, glided in, and as Odo righted the beaker and picked it up, making sure it had all got into the beaker and nothing was left on the floor, the Changeling spread out, slackening, it gave one last hushed tweeting hum.

"Mrrrp."

It sounded scared, terrified, and Odo held it closer to his chest, offering it safety in his arms, even if it could not understand such a concept, as he tapped at the Comm badge on his chest.

"Odo to Doctor Bashir, please ready the Med-bay. I'm on my way now."

One of his men, a Bajoran, tried to follow him. Odo kept the beaker, and therefore the Changeling, hidden in the crux of his elbow, the thing so small no one would be able to see it unless they were nose to nose with Odo and peered down into his arms. Due to the tensions already prevalent owing to the cold war the Dominion and the Federation had found themselves in, Odo didn't trust his men, at the appearance of the Changeling, not to begin shooting at, arguably, an injured child or to waste precious time that could be given to healing the Changeling on asking questions or debating whether they should or should not treat it at all. If Odo got the Changeling to Dr Bashir, with his Hippocratic oath, the man would offer treatment without pondering the politics of it.

"Clean this up."

Odo ordered as he stormed passed. He didn't mean to be snappish, but the little Changeling had fallen silent and still, and it worried him deeply. Of course, Odo would inform the Captain and officials of this turn of events… When treatment had already began. Healing of the young Changeling should be of top priority, their interrogation and questions could be answered in time, something this little being didn't have. Bashir's voice crackled out from Odo's Comm badge.

"How many beds?"

Odo made it to the lift without incident as the doors slid shut. Only then did he pull the beaker out of his folded arm, up to his eye-level, looking at the little flickers of bioluminescent light. It's glow was almost gone. There was, what looked to be, a blackened part of itself, like a vein, splintering through its left and it had completely fallen to motionlessness now. Still, regardless of the dire circumstances that had brought this situation to Odo's feet, quite literally in this case, his voice took on an almost astonished, fascinated and reverent tone.

"None Doctor… It's a young Changeling."

* * *

 **So, any good? Boo or Woo?**

Not much Odo in this chapter, but I did want to briefly touch upon him. I also hoped I didn't, for those who have watched DS9, butcher any beloved Characters lol. I'm hoping the more I dabble in them, the better I get at writing from their P.O.V, and begin nailing those characters. **Quick question:** whose P.O.V do you wish to see next? We're also getting into the longer chapters now, so buckle up kids, we're hitting the big waves!

 **A huge thank you to everyone!** Silent readers, followers, favourite-ers, reviewers, if I could, I would give you all a hug, but I'm afraid my thanks will have to do.

 _ **As always, please drop a review if you have a moment, they keep the muses chattering.**_


	4. Chapter 4

**Odo's P.O.V**

Odo. That was a name. _His_ name. Yet, ironically, it was no name at all.

Odo's name initially arose from the Cardassian language. Discovered drifting in the Denorios Belt by the scientists Malyn Ocett and Mora Pol, who eventually brought him right here, to Deep Space 9, then known as Terok Nor, it had not been long before he had acquired the name.

Odo'ital.

He despised it.

Mora Pol had marked his little laboratory flask, the beaker they had kept him in, his first ever home, as 'unknown sample'. There was no direct translation of the word to Cardassian. The Cardassians who ran the station at the time had interpreted it to the next best thing in their mother tongue for their own reports.

Odo'ital…

 _Nothing._

The Bajoran scientists had not minded. They took it, shortened it, fixed it for the Bajoran palate, and so, here he was, Odo Ital… Nothing. Every time his name was called by friend, as short as that list was, or colleague, as distant as those were, or enemy, as many as that seemed to have grown to lately, he was reminded, keenly, of those first agonizing decades where it simply meant he was nothing.

 _Nothing._

He had been _nothing._

Standing under the harsh incandescent lights of the stations Sick Bay, watching as Doctor Bashir scrambled to do what little he could for a life-form he knew even less about, as Odo saw him begin labelling the vessel they had placed the young Changeling in for safety, so they would not confuse them for a flagon of Biosynthetic anaesthesia, Odo had the sudden, but horrendous thought, he was back in time. Observing the very moment he was given the name he so hated.

As Odo saw those words starting again, the S, the A, the M, the P, the L, that hideously poignant E he knew was seconds from coming, Odo's hand shot out. It clasped tightly over the Doctor's rather delicate wrist, stalled him in his writing, stopped the E from forming, and halted history, as it so loved to do, from repeating.

"Constable?"

The Doctor was rightly confused. A little wide-eyed, in truth, as his gaze snapped to Odo. Odo stood, still, under the cold light, weighed down by his own bitter past.

 _Not again._

"Choose another word."

Bashir blinked at him, and Odo was sure he could hear the clip of his eyelashes meeting in the suddenly silent Sick Bay.

"I cannot label it Changeling for security purposes. I don't know what else to call it when asked-"

Odo knew Bashir didn't mean it the way it sounded. This doctor of compassion, who Odo had seen personally how far he habitually pushed himself to help others, spending hours on feet, hungry, exhausted as Solids often became, when the sick were laying around him, hurt.

Yet, there it was.

'I cannot label it'

 _It._

Not they.

Not them.

 _It._

Odo jerked his hand away from Bashir's. He had the odd urge to snatch up the bowl containing the little Changeling and to flee, not to look back once. He had the more bizarre desire to shout, scream, though he could not find any words that would at all fit the mutating intractable emotion that wanted to burst right out of him. Stranger still, he saw himself in that tiny bowl.

Present and past meeting on the point of a scalpels edge.

Or, more aptly, in the glisten of goo.

It, after all, was not that far off from nothing.

Perhaps he was about to do all those funny, peculiar things, because, finally, the last inhabitant of the Sick Bay stepped close to Odo's side, laying a soft, gentle hand upon his arm.

Kira's smiles were always warm.

"Why don't you give them a name? At least one we can keep on record until, perhaps, they can choose their own?"

A name.

They.

Their.

Not it, or nothing, or unknown sample. Kira, though young herself, always, somehow, someway, unlike himself who was so terrible at such a Solid thing as verbal communication, knew exactly what to say. At least what to say to Odo to ease the groundless hurt he noticed himself frequently feeling these days.

"A name…"

Odo found himself echoing. It seemed important then. So very crucial, especially for something that so many took for granted, for Odo to, for just once, pick the _right_ word. Names held power, Odo thought. He knew that _personally._ And think he did. Think and think and think and-

And not really think at all.

"Bu."

Bashir frowned at him.

"Boo?"

Kira's warm soothing smile stretched across her face like a breaking wave, scattering and broad and bright.

"B-U. Bu. It's Bajoran."

Her hand fell from Odo's arm as she strode nearer to the raised platform of the stasis counter, bowing down close to the glass bowl filled with green fluid, shimmering faintly under the restorative beam of the med light aimed directly at it.

"It means _life._ A good name… Hello Bu."

 _Life._ Something as far from nothing as could be. Life; Bu. Yes, Odo thought. It was a good name. At Kira's greeting, the Changeling, Bu as Odo had named them, did not so much as jiggle or wiggle or waggle.

They had ceased all movement since a standard hour past, when Odo had first arrived with Bu clutched in his arm and Bashir had set to striving to heal them.

Odo had expected more resistance. Perhaps a-

He had spoken too soon.

The doors to the Sick Bay whooshed open. The armed guards were the first to parade in, five in total, phasers already out of their slings and ready at their sides. Captain Sisko was the next to come marching in, tall and proud and, worst of all, _not_ alone.

Gul Dukat and the Vorta known as Weyoun were close to his back.

The trio's eyes were quick to fall to the raised dais and, subsequently, their new visitor.

Odo didn't have much time to process that Weyoun, by the looks of it, was not as dead as the last time he saw the Vorta.

"Is that what I believe it is?"

Sisko's tone was level, controlled, perhaps even calm from a certain angle, but Odo could hear the steal lurking beneath the banality all the same. He could not blame the Captain for his hesitancy. They _were_ in a cold war, of sorts, with the very people he, and this little Changeling, belonged to.

And here they were, possibly healing an enemy soldier.

Still, Odo had believed he would have, at least, a little more time to plan a strong argument of exactly why healing one of their potential enemies was, in fact, a good idea. Odo cut a glance to Bashir.

The man bashfully squinted down to his tricorder, tapping away.

"He needed to be informed, Odo."

Of course he did. Odo had not intended to keep this discovery hidden. Not only would that be impractical, where would he hide Bu? Under his security station? But Odo did not lie. It was not in him to. Yet… Yet, time would have been nice, he thought.

Nevertheless, by one specific glimpse, perhaps this was the best course of action. Because as soon as Weyoun saw what exactly was sitting in their Sick Bay, his face was alight with brazen unveiled astonishment.

"Oh, how magnificent!"

The shorter man came scurrying over, bounding in his stride, grinning, reaching-

Odo stepped in front of the Vorta before he could get too close to Bu.

"Bu is hurt. It is best to not disturb them further while they heal."

Sisko locked eyes with him. Odo straightened out underneath the heft of the Captains dark gaze.

"Bu? You've… Named the Changeling?"

That was funny too, Odo thought. Solids frequently named things. Almost carelessly in some instances. Their babes were named as soon as they came squawking into the world, loud and fleshy and completely lacking all personality. They habitually named everything around them, chair, table, spoon, light, from the smallest thing to the largest, to a Solid, it did not exist if it had no name. Thoughts became ideological or philosophical strands with pretty labels, and even emotions, something so sacred, could be contorted and stripped to something as restrictive as a word. Love. Hope. Grief. Anger.

Flimsy words for something felt so powerfully.

Kira, Odo had witnessed, had even gone so far to name her phaser.

Nonetheless, It was even more indictive when a Solid refused to name something. It distanced them, allowed them to view it in a clinical assessment. Without a name, it was nothing, and nothing, to a Solid, was easier to destroy.

Hate.

Torture.

Odo had been nothing.

This Changeling would _not_ be nothing.

If, and Odo realized this was a large possibility, the Captain wanted to rid himself of this being, let it whither and die, or perhaps even throw it out an airlock to drift away, or if the circumstances were truly dire and to finish the job the impact had not, Odo would not allow him to do so believing, for the assuage of his own guilt, that what he had done was to something that was nothing. Inert. Void.

This _was_ something.

This _was_ a sentient being.

Just like them. Just like him. With thoughts and feelings and opinions and-

 _Life._

Bu was alive, and Odo's name choice was not lost on Sisko, the Emissary of the Prophets who was currently diligently learning Bajoran.

He nodded to the Captain.

"They are injured, Captain. The impact into the station has reverted them to a minuscule volume, most of their mass having likely burnt up on collision. Young too. Very young. I fear they will…"

Odo suddenly found he could not speak, could not finish the words, let alone the thought. It was, anew, strange. Odo was logical, to a fault Kira often told him. Analytic. Ordered. Rational. Death was nothing new to Odo. He had seen it time and time again, in the many forms death could visit a Solid.

Old age.

Phaser fire.

Illness.

And then he tried to imagine the death of the Changeling healing behind him, a very real possibility considering the condition Odo had found Bu in, and realized he could not conclude it. He got to a point, right where he thought of the last spark of its glow fading and he-

It cut off. No. That is all he thought. _No._ Not here. Not today. Not tomorrow. He remembered one like Bu, so young, hurt, the baby Changeling he had tried to heal a few cycles passed.

The baby Changeling who had died in his hold, right in the cusp of his hands.

He had _felt_ their light go out.

Just like that. Gone. Silent, swift, scorching.

No more.

Odo couldn't stand the thought of doing the same all over again. _He wouldn't._ That Changeling had died without a name, though it had given him so much. Linked with him in its final moments, giving him back the ability to shape shift, which had been stripped by the Founders for his… Murder of another of his kind.

Because that was the worst action to a Changeling.

To kill another.

To _let_ another die.

Odo wouldn't allow it happen again.

He couldn't.

Thankfully, Bashir picked up where he could not.

"Odo is correct, Captain. From what I can understand of these recordings, this Changeling is young. A veritable child in our terms. The impact has caused severe damage. Moving them now, I believe, will end in the-"

Bashir cut a quick cautionary glance to Odo, before his gaze flickered back to the Captain.

Odo didn't look away from Sisko.

"Passing of the Changeling. However, they-… Bu seems to be reacting well to our technology, and I believe with further care they will make a full recovery… If that is your order, of course."

Odo stared at the Captain, eye to eye, willing him to understand. Bu was alive, just as they were. Bu was a child, perhaps as young as his own son Jake Sisko. There was no catch here. No reason for suspicion. This was no grand ploy or ruse to infiltrate the station by the Founders.

Despite what his people were capable of, such dark deeds, even they would not intentionally put a child in harms way.

Sisko held his gaze. Seized it, searching deep, burrowing. Odo thought Sisko found something there, loitering in his own eyes, though Odo could not name it himself. It felt a bit like desperation. Hefty and severe and unforgiving like stone.

The Captain's mouth opened, but Odo would never know what he was about to say, as Weyoun interposed, ruthlessly, twisting to face the Captain, back to Odo, to Bu, a tiny purple blockade between them and potential devastation.

"If it is not your order, Captain, it will be _mine_. Any damage to a Founder, chiefly one so young, especially under _my_ watch, will be taken as what it is, an outright assault, and it _will_ end in the complete annihilation of this station. Make no mistake in that. I, personally, will see to it. Choose very carefully."

Any sort of feigned civility, respect or politeness was gone. So far removed Odo, temporarily, had trouble aligning this Weyoun, who stood so still, unyielding, unsympathetic, with the one he had met previously. There was no gracious smiles, no fluttering of the hands in friendly enthusiasm, no threats obscured under cheeriness, and any sign or hint of diplomacy was no where to be found. It was as Weyoun was in that moment.

A warning.

A promise.

"Unlike your current associates, Weyoun..."

Sisko replied as he pointedly peeked at Dukat, who in turn appeared to be holding back a snarl at the obvious insult heading his way.

"Starfleet has, and never will, purposefully harm a child. I thought you had known us, known _me_ , better than that Odo."

Guilt, hot and rinsing, flushed through him at the barbed, nearly hurt, look Sisko shot him. Of course Odo had known that. Sisko, as strategic, pragmatic and critical as he was, was also a man of great empathy and kindness. Odo _knew_ that. He had saw it with his own two metamorphosing eyes.

It was why he was here, right now, and not with his own people who mistrusted Solids so.

As vicious as ten Solids could be, savage and cruel and brutal, there was always a Benjamin Sisko or a Kira Nerys and that, Odo thought, was something to have hope for. To fight for. A day where Solids and Changelings could stand side by side and not cast suspicion to their flanks.

And yet, under the prospect of the death of _another_ young Changeling who he had abruptly found in his care, what Odo knew of Sisko didn't seem to be enough to ease a kind of rising panic that had potently mixed with a steadfast resolve to see Bu, as the other young Changeling had not, survive.

Putting Bu's life on the whims of Sisko seemed nauseating, if Odo _could_ get sick.

Perhaps he was being cynical. Odo liked to think it was just being careful. Solids did, unfortunately, have the habit of rapidly changing their minds. Sisko was not exempt from this. Caution, in spite of counting Sisko in the few Odo classed as a friend, seemed to be the best course of action at the time.

By the slight smile, hardly even there, Sisko gave Odo as he cocked a brow, the father knew all too well the potent, jarring assortment of strange emotions running through him, perplexing him, and did not begrudge Odo's sudden wariness, even aimed at a friend.

Odo fleetingly envied the Captain. Sisko seemed to know why he was feeling this way when he, himself, had no clue. He also seemed, by the twitch at the corner of his lip, to find Odo's bewilderment at all these strange, strong emotions all too amusing.

The twitching no-smile soon died under the burden of the situation.

"However, I do not want Bu being left unsupervised, Odo. Not for a second. Not until we know their… Intentions. Are we clear?"

The heaviness was gone. That unsettling vibration, unseen by the naked eye, that had taken a hold of Odo since the Sick Bay doors had opened, quietened to his usual cool pulsation of lapping tides. The liquid that made up Odo once again tranquil below the well put together surface.

He didn't feel so on edge, primed for a fight.

Because he would have, he suddenly realised.

If the Captain had ordered the young Changelings death, Odo _would_ have fought it. Physically, if it came to that. And that was puzzling in and of itself. These were his friends, the closest people Odo had ever been to, and yet, he would have fought them for a Changeling he had not known for more than two hours and-

It had not come to that. Sisko understood, as he always uncannily did, and Bu was okay.

He calmed further.

 _Bu was okay._

"Perfectly, Captain."

The Captain nodded, tugging on the hem of his uniform jacket, when, once more, Weyoun elegantly interjected, back to his grins, forged altruism, and chirpy trickery.

"Naturally, given the unique circumstances we have found ourselves in, you will not mind my delegation staying until the Changeling is healed, surely?"

Gul Dukat, for the first time, spoke up, seething in an elongated hiss.

"We have important business to conduct on Cardassia Prime and-"

" _We are staying_."

There it was, a small crack in the visage, a glimmer at the real Weyoun prowling beneath this jolly façade, the very same flicker Odo had caught earlier. Formidable. Tenacious. Quick witted and quicker footed. A man who knew how to get what he wanted, when he wanted, how he wanted. A man who didn't take kindly to fools getting between that and him.

The two glared at each other, lingering and intense before, evidently, Dukat backed down with all the air and graces of someone who had won the nonverbal battle.

 _He hadn't._

"Of course, we still have to figure out the pressing matter of Tekeny Ghemor, and I assume that will take time to rectify."

There was no way to decline Weyoun's proposal, not without raising the tensions much more than they already were, and, as Odo looked towards the stiff back of the Vorta, Odo thought Weyoun, even if asked, would not leave. Not now. It was not truly a request as it was a declaration _hiding_ as a request.

Sisko sighed.

"I will find you and your commission some suitable accommodation. If you would like to follow me back to my Office?"

Gul Dukat was already turning around, marching for the door, likely still stung by being so overtly put in his place by the Vorta, as Sisko went to follow him. Dukat was out and gone by the time Sisko noticed they were the only two moving and stalled by the door, glancing over his shoulder.

"Weyoun?"

The Vorta's gaze had skulked back around, towards Odo, as he peered over his side to the Changeling behind him. His lilac eyes were alight, sparkling, light with awe. He didn't bother facing Sisko as he spoke, almost transfixed on the podium holding Bu.

"I believe I will sit this one out and stay here for a little while, if that is affable with you Captain Sisko? I am sure whatever rooms you find will be more than appropriate. Founder?"

He did, however, turn to face Odo in uncertainty.

Odo nearly scoffed at the name. He loathed it. Almost as much as his own name. Yet…

Yet there was an excitement and eagerness there, as bonny and bright as spring on Bajor, in Weyoun's oddly, for once, open face. A type of reverent and humble delight, real delight, at the possibility of not only getting closer to Odo, but to the Changeling recovering behind them.

It made it nearly impossible to say no.

No, not nearly.

It did.

"As long as you're quiet and keep your hands to yourself."

"Wonderful!"

Weyoun did clap then, loudly, and yes, he did _bounce_ , a little hop in his step as he rushed to the dais, pressing as closely as he dared to, bent and bowed and beaming.

His grin was still too sharp. Keen. Too many teeth on show. Unnerving in its intensity. Nevertheless, it was _warm_. The warmest Odo had ever seen Weyoun smile, _honestly_ smile. In fact, Odo thought it might have been the first true smile he had seen Weyoun give. True and real and as warm as Kira's smiles when she grinned at Odo. There was something in that smile that equally troubled him as it did contrarily soothe him.

"Hello Bu, I am Weyoun, can you hear me?"

The Sick Bay doors closed behind Sisko as Odo faced the pair, the Vorta and the Changeling. At Weyoun's question, Odo thought he saw a swell ripple across the Changeling, but it was gone before it was ever really there.

Nevertheless, he could not have been the only one to spot the ripple.

Weyoun laughed happily, and soon, there was no shutting him up.

So much for being quiet.

* * *

 **Harry's P.O.V**

Be still.

Be quiet.

Don't move.

Those were the first things Harry had learned from Vernon and Petunia. It was a lesson that had served her well in her relatively short life.

When in danger, complete and utter stillness was the best chance at escape. Solids often latched onto things that moved, zoned in on the slightest jostle and hunted, and yet completely overlooked all the dangers laying stationary about them.

In Harry's world, stillness often meant survival when dealing with those of a stable consistency.

Consequently, when she came to, for the first time in her entire life, to hearing someone speaking, to sensing the face hovering above her, grinning, with those strange, strange ears, and bright, bright lilac eyes, after the first startled jiggle, she had gone still.

 _Be still._

 _Be quiet._

 _Don't move._

Harry, in the beginning, on that first shocked awakening, had been _terrified._ All she remembered was the Veil, and… Crashing, yes, she had been flying and then… Panic. Pure fear as something… Pain… So much pain and-

 _Nothing._

Harry had never been unconscious before. She had never dreamed. She didn't know if that was what had happened to her, if she had been 'knocked out', as Ron would call it, but it was, possibly, the scariest thing she had ever gone through.

And she had faced a bloody basilisk.

Yet, that was nothing to the…

Emptiness.

It had been as if she lost herself.

Lost everything.

Nothing…

And then she had woken up, and everything got so much worse.

The noises were everywhere, speaking, beeping, bopping, swooshing. Bright lights assaulted her, from above, from the side, down below, blinding, hot, and when the other man came, the one with the metal remote and a handsome boyish face, and pointed it at her, that too flashed a sickening red and-

He spoke weirdly, that man, a man Harry thought was a doctor. He spoke of Changelings and metaphysics and atomic structures, of many things Harry, who had primarily grown up in the wizarding world, had no hope of understanding.

It only put her further on edge.

That's it, she thought. Bashir was what the melted faced one called him.

Odo…

She thought that was the others name, the one with the tight, half-formed face. It was either Odo or constable, as the doctor kept saying. And, yes, Weyoun was the last she saw, or sensed in her liquid state, as Odo kept telling him to not stand so close and-

 _Strange._

It was all so strange and a little terrifying.

So, she was still. She was silent. She did not move.

Harry did not know where she was. She did not know who these people were, if they were even people by the way some of them looked, or what they wanted. They must have wanted something, she knew, because everybody always wanted something from her.

Normally, that something _hurt._

 _Still. Silent. No movement_. They would get bored soon, she had hoped. When they believed she was nothing more than some gunk scrapped off wherever they had found her. They would get bored, perhaps put her in storage, perhaps turn their back on her and that's all she needed.

One moment.

A blink.

Then she could shift. Maybe into something small, unobtrusive, unnoticeable. A fly? A spider? She could scuttle away then. Find safety. Somewhere far away from the loud voices and bright lights and strange, strange, strange people.

She could go to the orange sea.

That's all she wanted.

That beautiful orange sea and that feeling of _home._

However, she was _never_ alone.

Not once out from a gaze.

If it wasn't that boyish doctor with his metal remote of light, it was the woman with the funny nose ridges poking at her bowl, and if it wasn't her, it was the grinning man with purple eyes, talking, always smiling, and if it wasn't him, it was the melted faced man who was forever staring.

Watching.

Nevertheless, Harry, if anything, was patient. She was a fluid, of course she was patient. Patience was intrinsic to a liquid. As the saying went, no matter how slowly a river rushes, it would still cleave through the mountain in time.

So she waited, still.

She was silent, and she listened.

She did not move, but she watched.

Odo, who always wore the same bizarre beige clothing, to which Harry thought might be a uniform of some kind, was a constant. He came early, or what Harry thought was early by the cycle the Doctor worked in, and stayed long. He called her 'Bu', which seemed to catch on with the others.

The word had terrified her in the beginning.

She had thought it might have been a different language at first with how the U was drawled, slang perhaps for 'test subject'. However, when the experiments never came, she began to think perhaps this wasn't a laboratory so much as… A hospital? Yes, a hospital.

And if she was in a hospital, then maybe they meant no harm?

 _Be still! Be quiet! Don't move!_

Odo sure didn't seem as if he wanted to harm her. He spoke to her regularly, softly, almost tenderly. Sometimes it was stories or rhymes. Occasionally he laid objects before her and told her their names, spheres, cubes, pyramids, as if he was trying to teach her basic geometry. Lately, he had taken to talking about his day, and Harry was right, it _was_ a uniform. He seemed to be a policeman of some kind.

Suddenly, he wasn't so scary anymore.

Suddenly, she liked listening to him.

Suddenly, she looked forward to when he came and missed him when he left.

Yet, she _never_ trusted him.

She never showed him.

She never, not once, moved or changed shape.

Harry knew what happened when people found out she could shift. That she, fluid, could think and feel and move. She knew what _always_ came next.

Pain.

Torment.

Fury.

Harry could feel no magic here, not a single sniff of it hanging in the air, and so, despite some of these people not even remotely looking human, she knew they were muggle.

Muggles always reacted the worst.

They screamed. Cried. Bawled. Fleetingly panicked in their shock. Then they got _angry_ , and when a solid got angry, they got _violent_. They were fast learners too, or Vernon had been. When they realized a fist passed right through, they adapted.

Electrical charges might not kill her, but they sure as Merlin hurt like a bitch.

Petunia had adored a good taser…

A little voice in the back of her thoughts, one that horribly sounded like Dudley, told her Odo would be the same, no matter how nice or tender or soft he seemed to be at the moment.

 _He would take one look at the freak and then he would get the doctor, and they would pin her down under a bucket like Petunia did, and the taser would come and she would cry and beg for them to stop but he wouldn't, just as Petunia and Vernon and Dudley had not and-_

Be still. Be quiet. No movement.

Just like how she got out of that bucket so many times.

By playing _dead._

They would grow tired soon. They _would._ Then she could escape, run, and find the great orange sea.

She would find home, and everything would be alright. Everything would be okay. Harry would finally be _free._ So, she waited and listened and watched… And then Odo did something she had never seen before.

Something beautiful.

He changed shape with the flow only a fluid could know.

* * *

 **Odo's P.O.V**

"By all my knowledge on your race, and I can't emphasize enough how little that is, Bu should be, well, fine."

Odo sighed at Bashir's rather pitiful shoulder shrug, looking as helpless as Odo felt.

"If they are fine, why are they not shifting? Why are they not moving? It has nearly been a standard cycle and Bu has not so much as wiggled."

Bu had gained much of their mass back, growing and filling the bowl each day until they had eventually been removed from the med light stasis. Bu was still small relatively to Odo's own liquid bulk, barely filling half the bowl, but Odo estimated that was approximately their natural size due to her age.

Odo had been around the same size when he was fifteen? Sixteen? He knew because Mora Pol had diligently weighed him each cycle for 'accurate' research data.

They were glowing now too, shimmering and gleaming brilliantly. Bu still had that worrying splinter of blackness threading through them, splitting and lacing, a tiny lightening bolt, Bashir had dubbed it, but all else seemed…

Well, as the doctor had called it, _fine_.

However, Bu still had not moved.

Not at all.

"Perhaps it is best if they come back with me to the Founders. They will know how to help them."

Odo glanced to Weyoun but could not hold his gaze. Despite everything unsavoury Odo thought of the duplicitous Vorta, he had stayed true to his word and stuck close to the Changeling, assisting where he could, taking watch when work called Odo to duty.

Nothing had helped in the end. Bu had not shifted at all and Odo felt like a… Failure. The worst kind. The only thing left to do had been the methods Mora Pol had used on him, but the thought of shocking-

 _No._

Bashir stayed by his desk as Odo strolled to the Changeling on the table at the back of the room, Weyoun sidling in behind him.

"Perhaps…"

Maybe it was best the Changeling went. Maybe Odo was only hurting them. Maybe they were already go-

Bashir turned to grab his tricorder, perhaps to gain another reading that would, as the countless others had not, shed some light on why Bu was not shifting, when his hip struck the corner of the desk, knocking off a beaker.

On instinct, Odo stretched an arm out, elongated and stretched, smooth and long, rippling and undulating with his orange shine, to snatch the glass before it could smash on the floor. He laid the beaker back on the desk, nodding at Bashir's grateful smile, and shrunk his arm back to his side. However, he noticed the doctor's gaze snap downwards, just passed Odo, and enlarge almost comically.

"Oh!"

Odo turned just in time to see the bowl wobble violently as the Changeling leaped out, spilling onto the floor in a puddle of green opposite of him.

Bu moved.

Bu was _moving._

Not just moving…

Shifting!

The puddle shot upwards in a spiral, snaking and winding and curving. One sprout, two sprout, three sprout, four… Arms and legs and neck and head and feet and hands and-

Small, very small, barely reaching where Odo, if he was a Solid, would have a solar plexus. Black curls gushed from the quickly forming head, as the green withered to a pale, crisp skin, soft sloped, delicate-

Female.

A decidedly female _human_ face. Perfect in its mimicry, unlike Odo's own, right down to a lone dimple on one cheek, a cluster of freckles by a large green, as extraordinarily green as her fluid state, eye, blinking at him, with a lopsided, toothy, nearly blinding smile and-

Smiling.

They were smiling fiercely.

Amazement sparking like green fire in their eyes.

"Bu?"

Even solid, Bu appeared to pulse in excitement.

"You're just like me!"

* * *

 _Thoughts?_

 **A.N:** I know it's been a while, and I really am sorry for that. Life's been a bit hectic, but I'm back to writing now and slowly working through my fics and I couldn't leave this one hanging much longer.

There wasn't much Weyoun this chapter, but I really wanted to focus on Odo and Harry, to begin building that family dynamic I want to explore through this fic, which will play a central role, and to also draw some parallels between the two that become important later. Don't worry though, Weyoun plays a bigger part next chapter and Keevan is coming very soon.

* * *

 **Thank you** for the follows, favourites and reviews! I really am sorry for the monstrous wait for this chapter, and I hope, in some shape, this chapter made up for it. As always, if you have a spare moment, drop a review to keep the muses singing, and let me know **whose P.O.V you would like to see next.** Hopefully, I will see you all soon!


	5. Chapter 5

**Benjamin Sisko's P.O.V**

"Bu looks very… human."

Benjamin Sisko truly, honestly, meant that. Bu, from the other side of the view screen to the Med-bay, looked like any other human female. Pretty, and pale, and particularly pleasant.

She had nails, and dimples, and curly, dark wild hair. She was soft, and green-eyed, and somehow, someway, the Changeling had even managed to add a rosy flush to her cheeks. She had, Sisko noticed, mimicked her clothing to a miniature replication of Odo's security uniform, though she had gone for a rather lovely shade of green, much like the green of her liquid state, rather than the lackluster beige. She was good, very good, at changing her shape, and very, very, very, human.

And Sisko had never been more worried. The implication was clear. Loud. _Frightening._ The Changeling before them now, Bu, _looked_ very human. Not Bajoran. Not Romulan. Not Cardassian. Not Betazoid. _Human._

According to Odo, sentient races were the hardest to copy. Even Odo had difficulty, hence his more smooth face. Yet, here Bu was, entirely human, and it could mean only one thing. She had to have been around humans, for a long, long, while, despite her obviously young age, to imitate them so well.

To be around humans, Bu needed to be-

Colonies. Earth had a few stellar colonies. They had plenty of stations. Perhaps she had been on one of them. Perhaps… _Perhaps._ The only way to really know the truth, Sisko concluded, was to actually _speak_ to the Changeling.

Sisko turned from the examination window, into the small observation chamber, to his Chief Medical Officer Bashir and Kira Nerys. Behind him, Bu continued talking to Odo, the only one permitted in with her currently, and somewhere in the hallway, Sisko knew, Weyoun and Dukat were bowed together, strategizing.

"Has Bu said anything?"

Bashir shook his head.

"Not much. She seems rather… Enthralled with Odo presently. I think this is the first time she's met anyone like herself."

Nerys cut in.

"Odo seems pretty captivated with her too. It's kind of sweet, really, watching them together."

Sisko glanced back over his shoulder, out the window, just in time to see Odo morphing his hand. Bu watched and seemingly… Jiggled in delight, reaching her own hand out to show him she could mirror the bird he morphed into his palm. Odo smiled widely, almost looking proud, and nodded at something she said with a cocked head.

It was sweet, Sisko would admit.

It was sweet, and it would not last.

The security of this station was his top priority, and to keep Deep Space 9 safe, Sisko needed information. The Changeling had, after all, somehow bypassed their security protocols and crashed into the station, nearly collapsing one of the pylons. Least of all, they needed to know how she had managed to do _that_.

"Come, let's get this show on the road."

Bashir and Nerys nodded, and the trio left the observation room for the adjoining hallway. Sisko was proven right when he spotted Weyoun and Dukat already there, sharply pulling away from each other upon their entrance, swiftly slinking into the back of the group to bring up the rear.

There was no point in asking for them to wait outside. Weyoun would insist on his presence, insist in the only way Weyoun ever insisted; by showing there was no other alternative with a smile on his face, and really, presently, Sisko had no ground to deny him on.

When the small group entered the Med-bay, whatever Odo and the Changeling were talking about quickly died to silence as the younger Changeling came to stare at the newcomers. Unblinking. Watchful… _Weary._

Prudently, Sisko stepped forward, closer to the Changeling.

"Hello, I am Captain Benjamin Sisko, Commander of Deep Space 9."

The Changeling observed him from her seat on the Med-bay bed, legs dangling over the edge, still, silent. Eventually, her gaze, which was somewhat piercing up close, a gaze that saw _deep,_ flickered to his side. Peeking over, he saw Nerys by his flank. _Ah._

With a wave of his hand, he slowly gestured to those around him.

"This is Kira Nerys, our Bajoran representative and Head of Security. This is Julien Bashir, our Chief Medical Officer and these are-"

Before he could introduce them, Weyoun was sliding forward, quite literally gliding in front of Sisko, and cutting over him. Sisko's hand flopped to his side, defeated and frustrated. How Dukat put up with the purple-eyed bast-

"I am Weyoun five. It is an honour to meet you."

Weyoun bowed low at the waist, nearly doubled in on himself, and the Changeling positively looked bewildered by it. Nevertheless, when Weyoun straightened out, the Changeling was smiling. Wide. Bright. Hot. Perfectly mimicked teeth all on show in a pretty little line.

Something weighty like dread dropped in Sisko's gut. She had not smiled for Sisko, or Nerys, or Bashir, but to the only Vorta in the room. A smile, being an action intended for a Changeling, as exhibiting solid emotion was not natural to them, which meant she _wanted_ Weyoun to know she was happy to see him. That couldn't be a good omen, could it? However, any sudden caution Sisko felt evaporated when, finally, she spoke.

"You're the one who hummed tunes to me, aren't you? I remember your voice."

She was happy because she remembered him, and she was happy someone she remembered was here right now, and with that caution gone, fear came barrelling through Sisko. Why? Because, while her words may have calmed him, her voice could do only the opposite.

A very clear voice.

A voice with, unmistakably, a very prominent English accent.

Sisko was half dazed when Dukat, evidently feeling left out, pushed himself forward when no one offered to introduce him.

"Gul Dukat, Leader of the Cardassian Union."

The Changeling glanced to Odo, as if in reassurance, and at his soft nod, she slowly slid off her seat on the Med-bed and turned to face them all head on.

"Hello."

Yes. Definitely an English accent. The kind of English accent typically gained only by being on Earth, or at least, growing up with English parents. For a dreadful moment, Sisko thought it was the former. It was always, on Deep Space 9, the worst alternative.

A Changeling… On Earth.

The information this Changeling could know. The information she could _give_ the Founders. The repercussions were severe and many, to many to count, notably as Sisko didn't know what this Changeling wanted, or what the hell she had been doing shooting out of the Bajoran wormhole in the first place.

"Do you have a name?"

At his question, she once again froze. Perhaps she was circumspect. Perhaps she was afraid. It was hard to tell with Odo's kind. They didn't display their emotions in a way Solids found exchangeable. If they didn't decisively display a mimicked response, it meant they didn't want you to know what was running through their head. Yet, she met his eye and held it.

"Bu… You all called me Bu. What does this mean?"

Nerys was the one to answer this question, gentle smile on her face, friendly and welcoming.

"It means _life_ in my mother tongue Bajoran. Odo grew up around my people. He thought, without a name to work with, Bu… Fit."

She paused, soaking it in, and Sisko could see a tiny, almost invisible, wobble to her outline. Oddly, he thought that might mean she was… Happy? Seconds later, when she beamed a smile at Nerys, Sisko was once again proven correct that evening. Quickly she nodded, testing the name out on her own metamorphosed tongue.

" _Bu_ … I like it. You can call me Bu."

Sisko broke away from the gathering, none too gently shouldering passed Weyoun to come to a towering stand before the Change-… Bu. She, to her credit, did not shy away. She simply looked up at him, head cocked, waiting. Nevertheless, Sisko did not miss the small step Odo took at her back to steal in closer.

"And can you tell me how you got aboard my station, Bu?"

Bu frowned deeply, and Sisko knew this facial movement was for his benefit, so he could know she was confused. At least she was considerate. Or, most likely, she knew how unsettling it was for Solids to converse with brick walls. Yes… She had spent quite a lot of time around humans to pick up the finer details of their behaviour and reactions.

Finer details she was going to give to the Founders and-

"The wobbly beings in the portal."

Bashir chuckled from behind him.

"The wobbly beings? What-"

Sisko and Nerys peered at each other at the same time, voice as one.

"The temporal aliens."

"The Prophets."

Glancing back to Bu, she nodded.

"I didn't mean to cause any damage. I didn't mean to scare anyone, or hurt anyone, I never would… I was trying to get to the orange sea. I… Don't know where it is, but I… I see it sometimes. I only wanted to go _home._ "

Odo tugged in tight to her back, resting a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently, Sisko could see, offering silent support, comfort, and most crucially, _understanding._

"It is called the Great Link. Our kind, Changelings, when we reach a certain stage feel a pull to re-join our people there. It is our home, indeed."

Bu seemed to take a moment to soak it in before she continued.

"I was trying to get to the orange sea, the Great Link, and I went through the Veil."

Benjamin cocked an eyebrow.

"The Veil?"

Bu stepped closer to him, voice dropping, clear and crisp like snow fall.

"It's a… Structure where I am from. A natural portal of some kind. As old as records itself. I knew if I went through it, I would get to the Great Link. I don't know how I knew, but I knew it was just on the other side of the Veil. However, I think something went a bit… Wrong."

Benjamin dipped his chin.

"You ended up, instead, in the Celestial Temple"

Anew, she frowned, and Sisko, belatedly, realized this was her attempt at a silent prompt for him to explain better. Coughing into a tight fist, he clarified.

"With the wobbly aliens."

She lit up once more, a tiny-barely-there-waggle to her skin, but it was only momentary, fleeting, before she forced the sever frown back on.

"I don't remember much. It's all very hazy, but they were wearing my friends faces and… And they spoke, as one, but I… Something about a war, and balance, and… Good luck. They wished me good luck. I remember that but I… I can't remember much else."

Odo crossed the distance, coming to a protective stance at the young Changeling's side.

"It's alright. I'm sure it will come back to you in time."

This seemed to pacify Bu, or at least, erase some of her worry, as she ostensibly… Buzzed. And Sisko meant that physically, as if she had so much energy in her, the shell of a human face could not contain it. In fact, as she began to pace and talk, hands in movement, weaving between her words, Sisko realized just how very… Un-Changeling-y she was.

Changeling's were often remote, distant, still as stone. Like the seas, they appeared calm on the surface, but were deceptively raging beneath. Bu was something like a river, Sisko thought. Fast and winding, bubbling and sparkling, dipping about in curiosity and innocence.

"And then they, the… temporal aliens? They were firing me out of the portal full force, and everything was spinning out of control and suddenly, I saw stars and… I was in space! Actual Space! Then the next thing I knew, I was being hurled out and, _bang_ , I woke up here, in the glass jar, and everyone's so strange and odd, and some of you have ridges on your nose or your head, and _not_ human and…. And here you are!"

In a blink she span, facing Odo, grinning almost ear to ear.

"Just like me! I've never met anyone like me before."

Another blink, and she, and her suddenly boundless energy, was now directed at Sisko.

"And Odo said there's more of us! Changelings? The orange sea… It's us! There's a sea of us out there, a _whole_ sea. Home. I finally get to go home."

Sisko would admit, in the way her voice warbled slightly on the decline of home, he felt a twinge of compassion plucking in his chest. He had grown up with a family of humans, on a planet of humans, in a quadrant of humans. His species were everywhere with him. Never, not once, had he been forced to look out and wander if, in the vastness of the sky, between the stars that shone, there could be anyone like him.

It must have been a very lonely life.

"If I may, Founder?"

Weyoun, of course, found this the perfect time to ingratiate himself with the Changeling. Amusingly, however, Bu did not realize he was speaking to her, did not so much as glance his way, until he stepped forward, catching her attention with movement.

"As a Vorta, and a dedicated representative of the Dominion-… Your home, it would be my privilege to take you to the Great Link."

If Sisko thought she had been buzzing before, he knew what _true_ buzzing was now. It was if, in one promise, Weyoun had illuminated the sky for her in one blaze of sunrise. Whatever reservations she had, fear she held, caution she tasted as she had stuck to Odo's side, evaporated, as she dipped away, almost running to Weyoun.

Weyoun himself seemed… Different. Certainly, there was the usual afterglow of worshipful approval in the presence of his 'gods', but there was… Something lurking beneath that, Sisko thought. A tenderness, perhaps, at the Changeling's smile.

"You know where it is?"

Weyoun grinned, not that grin Sisko was so accustomed to, clever and deceptive and duplicitous, but soft and gentle.

"I do, and I can get you there as soon as we leave Deep Space 9."

Bu went to reply, the two, Vorta and Changeling, ostensibly tangled in their own little bubble, a bubble Sisko could not stop himself from popping prematurely.

"I am afraid I cannot allow this."

The two glanced his way, Bu blinking, Weyoun-

Well, _deadly._

It did not stop Sisko.

"You're accent, it is English?"

Gingerly, she replied.

"Yes… I grew up in Surrey. Do you know of it? Have you visited Earth? It's a rather beautiful planet."

And the coin dropped in the room like a boulder on a house. Bu, Bu who looked so very human, and smiled so brightly, and seemed so receptive and sincere, was, in the end, despite what she appeared to be, a Changeling. Bu had grown up on Earth, she _knew_ things, things no other Changeling could know, information she would pass, unintentionally or otherwise, to the Founders if she ever joined the Great Link.

Not only that, but, according to Bu, and Sisko was inclined to believe her, Earth had a structure somewhere, a structure called the Veil, that, possibly, lead right to the Bajoran wormhole or, the Federation forbid, Dominion territory. It was likely how she ended up on Earth to begin with. She knew where that structure was, and she could tell the Founders its location. The wormhole would become nothing, they would have a steppingstone right into the heart of Federation space if they ever discovered this 'Veil'.

To add salt on the already grievous wound, was the factor of the temporal aliens, or to the Bajorans, the Prophets. If they were involved, by the way Bu acted and spoke, in certain turns of phrases, Surrey, for instance, she was not of… This time. She was likely from somewhere deep in Earth's past.

Yet, despite this, her joining the Great Link could _still_ be hazardous. Earth might have changed, advanced, grown, but humans, unfortunately, had not. Bu knew how to mimic them so well, she knew how their bodies worked… What _weaknesses_ they had.

Weyoun turned to him slowly, smiling keenly, knowing perfectly well what Sisko already knew.

"And I am afraid, Commander, that _you_ have no say. If the Founder wishes to leave, there is nothing you can do about it. I can tell you if you try, but once, to detain her here, within twelve hours this station will be nothing but rubble in the silence of space. You do not understand what you are poking here, Captain Sisko. Tread carefully."

And that was the catch, wasn't it? They let Bu leave, and she could pass on valuable information to a species one wrong move from declaring full out war on the Federation. They forced her to stay, and the Founders, by Weyoun's own impassioned behaviour, for whatever reason he had, would undoubtedly lead a full-scale assault on Deep Space 9.

Sisko's fist clenched at his side, the muscle in his jaw jumping-

Bu stepped away from Weyoun, smile long dead, still and silent and bright eyed.

"What do you mean rubble? Why would you attack this place? I-… _No._ I will not play any part in… in _violence…_ I don't understand."

Sisko, slowly, turned to Odo.

"You didn't tell her."

Odo peered down to the floor between them, just as Bu glanced between the two.

"Tell me what? What's going on?"

"I was about to tell you when Captain Sisko arrived. Bu… There is much to our people you do not understand."

Strolling over to the command desk in the Med-bay, Sisko retrieved a data Padd from the draw, entering his code to load up the files he would need. Once on screen, he, deliberately, made his way back to Bu.

He held the Padd out to the Changeling.

"I only ask that you read these files before you leave."

Slowly, she took the data Padd from his grasp, and Odo lobbied in close to her side.

"I think we need some time alone."

Sisko, Nerys, and Bashir nodded, but Weyoun, in one last effort to connect with the Founder, pulled free a short transmit communications device, offering it to Bu.

"If you need anything at all, Founder, press this and I will come."

Bu took it too, and Sisko left her there, with Odo, in the Med-bay.

* * *

 **Kira Nerys P.O.V**

Two work cycles later found Kira Nerys making her way to the Med-bay, checking up on the Changeling Bu and Odo. Sisko had given the two privacy to go over the files, and for Odo to fill in Bu on what the Founders, the Dominion, and their relationship with the Federation was.

Kira did not envy his job.

Not one little bit.

The effects of their talk was evident as soon as Kira walked into the Med-bay, to a very different sight to the one she had seen two shifts prior. There was no jiggles or chatter, no morphing and smiling, just a table and a very silent and still looking Bu staring out the port window beside her to the stars outside, data Padd before her, between an equally silent Odo.

She felt she was interrupting a funeral. Perhaps, in a way, she was. The funeral of a dream.

"I've come to watch Bu while you check in with Sisko, Odo. He requests an update on…"

 _On what Bu could possibly inform the Founders of, and what she had decided to do._ Kira, however, did not say this. She said nothing, everyone in the room knew what she meant, speaking it seemed redundant. Redundant and a little insulting to the young Changeling staring out the window.

Odo hesitated in leaving, but Kira smiled gently.

"I'll keep a good eye on her. I promise."

Odo sharply nodded, and turned his attention to Bu.

"I'll be back shortly."

Bu only nodded in return, did not look his way, did not speak. Kira, idly, wondered what she saw out that window. Freedom or a prison? Maybe it was a bit of both, sweet with the sour, life's greatest pleasure.

Calmly, Kira passed Odo on his way out and took a seat at the table, beside Bu. The latter only spoke when Odo was long gone.

"I think I've time travelled. I thought I was in an alternate reality or… Somewhere far away or… I thought you were all aliens, but you're not, are you? Not all of you. Not Sisko or Bashir. They're human, and this, all this… This is the future. I time travelled."

That was, certainly, the main theory being bounced around the desk of the Heads of Deep Space 9. The involvement of the Prophets could only lead to such. However, even if Bu were a thousand years in the future from her original time, what she knew of Earth, what she knew of _humans,_ could be detrimental in the wrong hands.

Those wrong hands belonging to the Founders.

Her own people…

"The Prophets are beings capable of such spatial manipulation. Perhaps you have."

Bu stewed it over, face sleek and blank.

"Humans in my time had only landed on the moon. Now look, they're here… Amongst the stars. How far we've all come."

There was a hint of delight and pride in her voice that Nerys could hear lingering in the air like the last note of a song. Nerys found herself smiling. Bu seemed to be a gentle sort, gentle like Odo, so far from what any Founder was like, the ones Nerys had met at least.

"Did you read the files?"

And that was positively the wrong thing to say. Nerys wouldn't have noticed the difference in Bu if she had not spent so many years, _close_ years, with Odo, but she had, and she did. There was almost a kind of thickening to her, condensed and taut beneath the face of a human. If Bu was anything like Odo, Nerys suspected this meant she was upset.

"How far we've all come… And how exactly the same we are. I may not understanding what cloning, Ketracel-white, or… Or Romulans are, though Odo is trying to explain as best as he can, but I know _war_ when I see it. That's what this is, isn't it? War? This Federation is at war with these Founders… With beings like me."

Nerys tried to reach across the table, to fold her hand over Bu's laying prone on the table, but she snapped the limb back before Nerys could make contact, finally turning to meet her eye. The only thing to speak was the truth.

"Not quite… Not _yet."_

Bu's chair scraped against the floor as she stood, staring down at Nerys.

"I know why my people are afraid of you. You solids can be vicious. Brutal. Barbaric and thirsty for blood. Sometimes you hurt things just because you can, because you think it's fun and makes you feel bigger than you are. You kill and maim and blow each other up. You _are_ dangerous. I've seen it myself."

Bu didn't say it callously. There was no snide curl of the lip or keen glint in the eye. She spoke as if she was speaking of the weather, of the planets rotational orbit, of facts without bias. And Nerys had no place to argue. What she had said _was_ true, and, undoubtedly, Bu had seen it all for herself.

Yet, Bu wasn't finished.

"But I have never met kinder people. You all live so fast, so hard, and enjoy every moment as if it's your last. You're loyal, and inspiring, and you are capable of magnificent things. Love, and hope, and dreams. You dream, and it's beautiful. So very beautiful. Sometimes, I wish I were a Solid… If only to try cotton-candy. Or to dream. Or to know what it's like not spending every waking moment trying, trying so hard, to hold onto a shape, any shape if only, for a moment or two, I can walk in your world and see your colours."

Nerys stood, voice strained and slightly wet.

"Oh, Bu-"

However, Bu was on a roll now.

"You said we're not at war yet, right? Maybe if I go to the orange sea-… Maybe if I connect with the Great Link like Odo told me about, I can show them all the wonderful things and show them that fear isn't necessary… Not always. Maybe we can stop this before it even begins."

The truth was, the Founder's had already seen what wonderful things Bu described, and still, they feared Solids. Perhaps they were right to. They had, according to Odo, been persecuted across quadrants, slain and killed and hated simply for what they were, and Changelings, Nerys could attest herself from watching Odo, strived for order in the universe. Order and safety the Founder's thought they could obtain by overseeing every other species.

This was, in the end, hopeful thinking. They both knew it.

"No one, not even Sisko, will stop you from leaving if you wish to re-join your people. It's your choice. The commander only wanted you to know the circumstances."

Bu turned back to the window beside them.

"Are they really that bad? The Founders? My people? Do they really genetically… They have _slave_ races?"

Slave races weren't really the right label, Nerys thought. The Vorta and Jem'Hadar wished to be there… Through genetical engineering to steal their free will and any doubt they may have about the Founders, or drugged them until they were dependant on the Founder's for survival. No, slave races didn't really cover it. _Puppets_ did.

Nevertheless, Nerys did not know any of this first-hand. Only hearsay and stories passed along. Maybe it was true, they, no one, really knew all that much about Bu's race, just enough to have everyone worried. Still, there could be good to them, the Founders, good that had not been seen yet.

"I'm sure there's more to it. This is only what we know so far."

Nerys did not sound convincing, even to her own ears.

"I used to imagine meeting someone like me. I never imagined… _This_."

Bu was nice, sweet in an almost child-like way, _innocent._ Yes, Nerys thought. She had a touch of innocence to her, a hope, that permeated everything about her.

"You've met Odo, and as someone who has known him for a few years I can tell you he's nice. Sweet. He's a good… Friend. One of the best you can find."

From her reflection in the port window, Nerys could see Bu meet her eye, a smile blossoming on her face.

"He thinks so of you to. I can tell."

Nerys couldn't see the flush staining her cheeks in her dark hazy reflection, but she sure felt the burn of it heating her skin. Bu, however, seemingly got an idea as she span on her heel, wiggling at her corners and bends, a little jiggle to her sketch.

"Odo can come with me! If he's there when I join the Great Link, he can make sure I don't pass along anything problematic and-"

"Odo can't go."

Bu came to a stop, head cocking to the side like a Risian pup.

"He can't?"

Nerys sighed.

"Odo… Odo isn't allowed within the Great Link anymore. He was trying to protect a Solid and a Changeling… Died. The Founders have stripped him of his status. He's been banished. Even if Odo wanted to, he can't go."

Bu stood still for a long while.

"He's alone?"

No, was Nerys knee jerk reaction. _No, he has me._ Yet, that was a selfish thing to say, wasn't it? As if Nerys was all he would ever need, and deep down, Nerys knew what Bu was talking about. Odo was alone, ostracised from his kind, the only Changeling in this entire sector and…

And it must have been lonely. Nerys knew, no matter how hard she tried to connect with Odo, she could never fill that whole, she could never understand what it was to be fluid and not a solid. No one could.

As lonely as it must have been for Bu on Earth, so far away, so long ago.

Bu took Nerys's silence for the answer it was.

"To be alone in the world is a terrible thing. I know how that feels."

Nerys was sure she did. Nevertheless, right before her eyes, Bu… Changed. Her chin tilted, high, proud, and her shoulder's squared.

Sisko had been right, Bu was extremely good at mimicking human behaviour, for that was unquestionably determination.

"I've made my choice. Take me to your leader."

And the impressive image was somewhat broken as Bu smiled, looking expectantly at Nerys as if she had said something hilarious and was waiting for the punchline to hit.

Nerys couldn't find the joke, but she did nod, leading Bu out the Med-bay.

* * *

 **No One's P.O.V**

"Our vessel is ready to leave whenever the Founder decides she wishes to go."

Captain Benjamin Sisko, sitting behind his desk in his Command office, finger's stapled together in thought, regarded Weyoun with a steely, dark look.

"She has not made that choice just yet, Weyoun."

Weyoun, in return of the glare, smiled blindingly, all congenial and agreeable.

"It is only a matter of time. Bu _must_ return to the Great Link."

The last occupant of the room, Odo, watching from the corner, spoke for the first time since Weyoun had barged into the office during his report to Sisko.

"You seem very persistent on the matter she returns. Why?"

Odo, while still banished from the Great Link, _was_ still a Changeling, a Founder, to the man before him, something Weyoun always reminded him of, and in so, Odo was the most likely to get a straight answer out of the typically misleading man.

"You saw her yourself, Foun-"

At Odo's rather intense glare, Weyoun swiftly changed tack.

" _Odo._ Bu is green, not orange, _green_ , in her liquid state."

Sisko arched a brow high.

"And?"

Weyoun sighed, but gave nothing else, until Odo pushed.

"Why is that important, Weyoun?"

Weyoun glanced to Sisko, obviously debating whether to give away the information he had in the presence of a human, even if it was by the command of a Founder, or whether to try and find his way out of any answer at all. The urge to answer Odo won, in the end.

"Founders procreate by a single splitting. It is a conscious decision of one Founder to split apart from a section of themselves to create a new consciousness. Sometimes…"

Odo stepped closer, away from the corner of the room.

"Sometimes?"

Weyoun took a deep breath.

"Each Founder has a consciousness for themselves, and yet, the Great Link is another form of consciousness all together, one where each Founder is integrated. The Great Link, in theory is-"

"Its own individual."

Odo added. He knew that, of course, as, even if it had been but for a brief moment, he had felt that connection, been a part of that link, a voice in the bigger whole. Sisko, never having felt anything remotely like that, slid in.

"How does any of this impact why one Changeling is green?"

Weyoun shot a sharp glance Sisko's way. His diplomacy was, evidently, running thin.

"As I previously said Commander, if you would but listen, most Founders are born from a single split from one Founder. _Most_. Not all."

Skirting closer to Sisko's desk, Weyoun's voice dropped low, steady, relentless.

"There has been a few rare occasions, so very few and far between only the Founders know how many, that the Great Link itself has… Split."

Odo turned to face Sisko.

"That's why Bu is green. She's not just a separated piece of one Founder given her own consciousness, she's the product of the Great link itself, all Founders, in splitting to form-"

Weyoun straightened out, nodding.

"One being. One Founder. The fruit of the Great Link, in _one_ soul. Bu is incredible precious to the Founders, and I don't think I need to explain the lengths The Founders will go to see her home again. She is their child. She is your child, Odo. She needs to go home, to safety."

Sisko stood from his desk.

"If she's so precious, what was she doing on Earth? Why send her out at all?"

Weyoun sneered at the taller man.

"Bu would _not_ have been sent out. Not by the Founders. Those born from the Great Link, the last having happened long, long, long ago Captain, do not leave the Link until they are much older. Bu should not be here. She should not have been on Earth. The Founder's did not do this."

Weyoun's gaze rolled slickly over Sisko.

"It is funny, however, that _you_ bring up Earth. Is it not ironic that the species we are currently in a rather contemptuous stalemate with is the same species whose home world Bu has been all this time? One might see a correlation there, Commander, and it is not pretty."

Sisko flushed hotly, affronted at the clear insinuation.

"You think _we_ stole her?"

Weyoun shrugged, palms up.

"I think _someone_ took her. The Founders would not have let her go so easily. And I know Earth has been investigating this Bajoran wormhole, have they not? In fact, Sisko, if your own reports are true, you've spoken to the temporal aliens yourself. Perhaps there's an alliance there, a pact maybe? We all heard Bu: time travel. Perhaps you haven't done it yet. Time is such a muddled mistress."

Sisko looked ready to burst.

"So now you are accusing us of a crime not yet committed? A crime not yet committed you are not sure will ever come? Do you hear yourself, Weyoun?"

Weyoun grinned, triumphant.

"It was just a theory, Captain. No need to get so worked up. If you cannot control yourself over this matter, perhaps it is best you excuse yourself from it. I am sure Odo and I can come to a satisfactory decision."

Sisko had walked headfirst into the trap. If he could not act diplomatically enough, Weyoun, without hesitation, would push for his discharge on the matter. With Sisko out of the equation, Weyoun would walk all over everyone else. Sisko knew, if this came to be, Weyoun would have Bu halfway to the Gamma quadrant by the end of the cycle.

No one did backhanded politics like Weyoun.

It was what he had been made for, after all.

However, before Sisko could do much, salvage what he could, perhaps wrap his hands around the Vorta's neck and twist, pointless in the end, the Founders would simply clone another one, Kira Nerys was entering the room.

"Captain, Bu is here to see you."

Sisko straightened out, tugging on the hem of his duty uniform.

"Send her in."

Bu came trailing in, still dressed in green, still pleasantly human-

Not quite.

She'd added a little Bajoran ridge to her nose this time. A small change, but an act that soothed something deep in Sisko and the fellow humans who saw her. She must have picked up how her human appearance unsettled the humans around her, and decided to rectify what she could.

"I've brought these back. I've read enough."

Coming close to his desk, Bu held out the data Padd he had given her. Taking the Padd, Sisko regarded her quietly.

"You are leaving?"

Bu shook her head.

"That's why I came here. I want to ask you something."

At his silence, Bu pressed on.

"Can I stay?"

Weyoun spluttered.

"Stay? Here? Surely, Founder-"

"My name is Bu."

The tone was insistent, forthright and resolved. Yet, when she peered to Weyoun, she softened.

"My name is Bu, as yours is Weyoun. We're people with our own names, and If we are ever going to be friends, that is how it has to be. Not Founder and Vorta, or Human and Changeling, but Bu, and Weyoun, and Sisko and Odo. I'm not here to represent my entire race, it is unfair of any of you to try and make it so. I'm here as Bu, a Changeling who has gotten a little… Lost, who is asking, from one person with a name to another, if I can stay."

She, unlike Odo who had spent many an hour trying to convince the Vorta into calling him by name and failed, seemingly got through. Slowly, he dipped his chin.

"Bu."

Bu turned her attention back to Sisko.

"Kira Nerys said Odo can't return to the Great Link?"

Odo replied.

"No, I cannot."

Bu nodded.

"You'll be alone here if I go? There's no other Changeling's aboard the station?"

Hesitantly, Odo concurred. Bu met Sisko's eye.

"Then I won't go. I grew up thinking I was alone in the universe. Something… Wrong. Something lost and alone and destined to die that way. It's a dreadful thing to feel, Captain Sisko. But then I saw Odo… And it was one of the best moments of my life, to realize I was _wrong,_ I wasn't alone or lost or destined for seclusion. The Great Link can wait. I won't let anyone else, anyone else like me, feel that way. Not if I can help it."

Weyoun's head tilted.

"Don't you wish to see the rest of your people? I know they will want to meet you."

Weyoun wasn't trying to change her mind by reminding her what she was momentarily giving up, but he honestly seemed curious.

"Yes, I wish to meet them very much. More than I can say, but not at the cost of others. No one has said it, not out loud at least, but I'm guessing there's a danger in me going back to the Great Link? So, I'll wait. I'm good at waiting. And I won't stay here forever, only until this… War is over or has never begun. So, Captain…"

She smiled wildly.

"Can I stay with Odo?"

Sisko answered her bright smile with one of his own.

"It would be my pleasure."

Bu jiggled, and Odo strode closer.

"You do not have to do this, Bu."

Bu shrugged.

"No, but I think I want to."

However, Bu clapped.

"I have just one more big favour to ask."

Sisko nodded, waiting. Bu turned to Weyoun.

"You said you know where The Great Link is? That you could take me there when I wanted to go?"

At Weyoun's nod, Bu, again, turned to Sisko, and shattered everything with a smile on her face.

"If Weyoun agrees, I want him to stay here too."

Sisko blinked at her, incredulous, sure he had heard wrong.

"Excuse me?"

Bu wasn't perturbed by his sudden tongue-tied state.

"Weyoun knows where the Great Link is. After all this is sorted, he can take me there. Weyoun can get me home. He knows my people, knows them better than I do, he can tell me things and… I want Weyoun to stay, if he wants to, of course."

Weyoun smiled the largest Sisko had ever seen the man smile.

"I would be honoured, Bu, to be your guide."

Bu laughed, bright and clear like glass windchimes, and Sisko stuttered.

"Wait one moment-"

But Weyoun, the Weyoun who could walk circles around the Tal-Shiar and seem at home on the floor of a Cardassian governmental debate, was back at full work.

"It is a satisfactory compromise, Captain. Bu cannot be left unguarded, even under the watch of Odo, and the Founders will wish for her return. If I am here, If I am present with her, that in and off itself is a promise of her arrival home eventually, and an assurance of her safety. At the same time, you get to keep your secrets. Bu has, indeed, come up with the a tactful response to these circumstances, and I would remind you, she is trying to meet you halfway. It is only right if you give her the same courtesy."

Sisko's teeth ground together.

"And the Founders will agree to this? At having one of their top men playing babysitter? Aren't you meant to be on Cardassia, twisting Dukat's ear?"

Those in the room were not quite sure what indignant looked like on a Changeling, but the sudden… Drooping shift in Bu's features were, perhaps, a liquid version of it. Before Bu could blow, Weyoun spoke.

"Not a babysitter, as you call it. A guide. I can teach Bu of her people, teach her in a way you, nor Odo, can. I know the Founder's history as if it were my own. The Founders will see and appreciate this, and feel more inclined to agree if I am here to offer security. As for my… Work on Cardassia, another Vorta will fill my place readily."

Sisko, finally, conceded.

"I will need to converse with my superiors in Starfleet Command and the Bajoran government. They need to agree to this too."

Weyoun nodded.

"Then perhaps you should call. And, Captain, if I were you, I would insist. Think of the alternatives."

There were only two. Bu left, and she would take sensitive information with her, the location of this Veil only one piece, or, in trying to keep her there, the Founder's would attack. Weyoun had warned them of it himself. Bu was precious… Perhaps precious enough to finally strike out to regain her.

What a mess.

* * *

 **Odo's P.O.V**

"Captain Sisko? Has a decision been reached yet?"

Sisko was in his office on the Command deck of Deep Space 9, and generally, Odo would not disturb him, especially without comm'ing through about his oncoming arrival, unless it was in an emergency. Yet, it had been a whole cycle since that meeting in Sisko's office, and still, neither Odo or Bu had heard word of the decision made.

Sisko, behind his desk once more, glanced up from his communications screen.

"I was actually on my way to come and see you and Bu in the Med-bay. I've just received a response from Starfleet Command. Both the Bajoran government and Starfleet have consented to the agreement."

Odo felt himself relax, though he had not thought he had been tense before. Jittery, in a sense. Sisko must have spotted the change in his posture, as the man smiled softly to his security officer.

"Bu can stay."

Smiling, to show Sisko he was grateful, Odo watched as Sisko's sagged back into his chair, pinching at the bridge of his nose.

"Along with _two_ Vorta."

Odo's head slanted curiously.

"Two? Bu only asked for Weyoun."

Rolling his chair out from beneath the desk, Sisko took a sluggish march to the front, as if he was walking miles instead of footsteps, kicking back to lean against the table by his hip, arms crossing over his broad chest.

"According to Weyoun, who's playing mouthpiece for the Dominion in these talks, it's ordered by the Founders. Two Vorta, or Bu must go back… Or else. Should anything happen to Weyoun five, they need guaranteed confidence another Vorta would be present to help Bu so she isn't stranded alone for any given amount of time it would take them to send another Vorta."

Sardonically, tired, Sisko chuckled.

"It's almost like they don't trust us."

Odo nodded. Two Vorta, certainly, instead of one, was double the trouble, but he could understand the Founder's perspective. However, something was still puzzling him.

"I understand Bajor accepting, as they wish to remain a neutral party between the Federation and Dominion territories, and given the Prophets involvement with Bu's appearance here, they would want her to stay at this station that, ultimately, is still theirs. However, I must admit, Captain, I am surprised Starfleet has accepted this arrangement. Are they not worried Bu and the Vorta will spy?"

Sisko, plucking up the baseball resting on his desk, white worn yellow in patches and red thread becoming stretched with age, rolled the toy between his palms, bouncing between to places.

"It's not completely altruistic on Starfleet's part, Odo. You heard Weyoun yourself. For whatever reason, Bu is… Special. The Founders, Weyoun said, think of her as precious. With Bu present on this station, Starfleet feels a total invasion or assault on Deep Space 9 lead by the Dominion is less probable. The Founders, Starfleet believe, will not be willing to risk her life that way."

Odo glowered, dark and deep, directed right at Sisko so the Captain would know, without question, Odo was not pleased by this revelation.

"Starfleet are using her as a shield."

Sisko sighed, setting the baseball back down as he edged closer to his security officer.

"And because we do not know exactly what makes Bu special, only that she is birthed from this Great Link rather than a singular Changeling, Starfleet believes that by having her here, for however long, might diminish the Founders in some form, or at best impede them."

Odo understood the logic perfectly fine, and he might have agreed with it under different circumstances, as he felt his anger bubbling in the bottom of his being perfectly fine. Odo had heard Weyoun too, Bu was made from the Great Link. In part, she was made from _him_. All of his race, every last drop, in one small little Changeling.

"Lastly, with Bu here, and two Vorta, we have them under eye. Somewhere we can watch. Somewhere we can reach. Somewhere _off_ the chessboard. Starfleet believes this could be… beneficial."

Odo considered Sisko, considered the dark circles lurking underneath his eyes, the crease of worry drawn at the corner of his lip. Solids were so easy to read, open for all the world to see, and yet, here, Odo could not see Sisko's motive, and this made him infinitely apprehensive.

"You say Starfleet, Captain, but what do you believe?"

Sisko winced.

"I'll be honest with you, Odo. I was weary in the beginning when Bu suggested it. This could all be a Dominion trap. A way to get spies on board to gather intel otherwise inaccessible to them. And then…"

"And then?"

Sisko met his eye, dark gaze gentle and diffused.

"Bu's _very_ human. Young too. She can't be older than my Jake and… I do not believe there's any ill intent on her part. Additionally, she seems… Honest. Innocent in a way I haven't seen for a very long time. Who knows, down the line, if this works out, Bu could be our bridge to better understanding your people, and them understanding us, and perhaps we can finally start to make peace with one another. Either way, Bu will be safe here, Odo. You have my word."

Sisko grimaced.

"Yet, with the Vorta… I need you to watch them carefully. We know Weyoun. He must be up to _something_ , yet this one that should be arriving in two cycles is an unknown. Keevan, Weyoun called him… I do not like that, Odo. I do not like not knowing who is going to be prowling around my station. I want security watching them like a hawk. Neither leave your surveillance, not for a second. Are we clear, Officer?"

Odo stood to attention.

"I am already on it, Captain. I should leave. Bu is waiting for me and the answer in the Med-bay."

With a swift nod in silent goodbye, Odo turned to leave, only to have a voice still his steps.

"Odo?"

Odo glanced over his shoulder.

"Yes, Commander?"

Sisko smiled, light and toothy, as a friend would smile to another, not a commanding officer to a subordinate.

"Good luck, I have a feeling you're going to need it on your paternal journey. Children are wonderful things, but remember Odo, I'm forty… And completely bald for a reason."

Sisko winked.

"Welcome Bu to Deep Space 9 for me."

* * *

 _Boo or Woo?_

* * *

 **Next Chapter:** Finally some Weyoun and Bu's P.O.V, and guess who's coming to Deep Space 9?...

* * *

 **A.N:** So it's been a little while since last update, but to make up for the wait, instead of splitting this chapter up into little bits, I kept it as one whopping whole, nearly 10,000 and posted it. I hope this makes up, at least a little, for the weight. As for those asking, I am currently working on updating my other Star Trek Harry Potter Fanfictions, and so Signs of Snow, Dynasty, Underneath The Red Sun, and A Long Way Home are coming pretty soon, which I hope you are all looking forward to!

As always, thank you all so much for the favourites, follows, and those lovely, lovely reviews! I hope this chapter made you smile, and you liked even just a part of it. If you can, and you have a spare moment, don't forget to drop a review, and I will hopefully see you all very soon! Keep safe!


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